NATO summit puts Ukraine’s ambitions on hold, but G7 offers hope

For Ukraine, this week’s NATO summit was both disappointing and encouraging, a reality check and a boon to national aspirations and long-term security prospects – part cold shower, part warm bath.

The dose of realism came when the 31-nation, U.S.-led defense alliance declined to formally invite Ukraine to join the club – instead offering in a communiqué Tuesday that NATO “will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.”

That clumsy wording infuriated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who in the run-up to the summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, had lobbied NATO members for an invitation and timetable for joining the alliance. Many Eastern European members concluded with Mr. Zelenskyy that the statement was only slightly more encouraging than one issued at NATO’s 2008 summit