Czech president not ruling out approval of security guarantees for Ukraine at NATO summit

He said this at a briefing in Prague after his visit to Ukraine, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

According to Pavel, the Ukrainian authorities do not expect the decision on Ukraine's membership in the military alliance to be approved at the summit in Vilnius.

"What Ukraine is waiting for is an expression of unequivocal support from allies and what they call security guarantees," the Czech leader said.

He noted that Kyiv had been intensively working on such guarantees together with former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. According to Pavel, the draft document already exists and will be discussed with the allies.

"These guarantees, of course, will not have the characteristics of a full-fledged Article 5 [of the NATO Charter, which provides that an attack on one or more NATO members shall be considered an attack against them all and will cause a response from all members of the alliance]. But we can look at guarantees in various forms that were given to Finland after it announced its plans to join the alliance [...] or at the Israeli model," Pavel said.

He added that the Czech Republic would consider the document and determine to what extent it will be able to join the guarantees.

The NATO summit will take place in Vilnius on July 11-12, 2023.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that Ukraine was preparing for the NATO summit in Vilnius and was waiting for a political invitation to join the alliance.

He also added that Ukraine should receive effective security guarantees even before joining NATO.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that NATO should make a political decision to put forward a timetable for Ukraine's accession, either at the Vilnius summit or by the end of 2023.

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