President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyі planned to speak from the podium in Vilnius during the summit and ask to accept his country into NATO. However, the USA and Germany opposed it, the BILD newspaper reports with reference to its sources.
A country must formally ask NATO if it can join the Alliance before the process can begin. This is exactly what Volodymyr Zelenskyi planned to do, BILD notes.
But it is precisely this official request that some important NATO countries want to prevent. First of all, Germany and the USA, "unfortunately, they are getting closer," an informant from Eastern Europe told BILD.
"I can confirm that the US and Germany are blocking Ukraine's official application for NATO membership," a high-ranking source told BILD.
In addition, the two countries put "pressure" on other NATO members to join their position.
Another diplomat disappointedly told BILD that Berlin and Washington want "a final declaration that hardly goes beyond the one made in Bucharest in 2008."
At the time, the final document of the summit read: "NATO welcomes the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia for NATO membership. We agreed today that these countries will become NATO members."
The President of Ukraine is now "extremely angry" that he was not allowed to do this, BILD reported.
NATO Allies reached a consensus to remove the Membership Action Plan from Ukraine's path to joining the Alliance. This was announced by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba.
The Office of the President previously stated that Ukraine's accession to NATO was supported by approximately three quarters of the Alliance's members.
