Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to issue an invitation to Kyiv at a meeting in Brussels next week to join the Western military alliance, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
The letter reflects Ukraine's renewed push to secure an invitation to join NATO, which is part of a "victory plan" outlined last month by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to end the war triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion.
Zelenskiy told UK-based Sky News that offering Ukraine NATO membership while allowing Russia to keep for the moment territory it had captured could be a solution to end the "hot stage" of the 33-month-old war.
Ukraine says it accepts that it cannot join the alliance until the war is over but extending an invitation now would show Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could not achieve one of his main goals - preventing Kyiv from becoming a NATO member.
