The Diplomat
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced yesterday in Brussels that Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski will participate later this month in the NATO Summit in Madrid “in person or by videoconference.”
“President Zelenski will be invited to the NATO Summit in Madrid,” the secretary general declared during the press conference prior to the meeting of defense ministers of the allied states, which began yesterday and will conclude today in Brussels and in which the Spanish minister, Margarita Robles, is participating. “Just as President Zelenski addressed the last Summit we held here in Brussels in March, he will also address and participate in the Madrid Summit in two weeks’ time,” he added, referring to his telematic participation during the last extraordinary summit of Euro-Atlantic leaders in Brussels.
“Of course, he will be welcome if he attends in person, and if it is not possible for him, he will also address by videoconference,” he continued. If he is able to come to Madrid, it would be his first trip outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion of his country began on February 24.
During the Madrid Summit, Stoltenberg said, “a comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine” will be agreed upon, because “our goal now is to help them in the fight against the brutal Russian invasion, to help them with practical support, with lethal and non-lethal assistance from NATO allies and NATO itself, and also to help Ukraine modernize its armed forces”.
Likewise, he continued, “the applications for NATO membership of Sweden and Finland” will be discussed in Madrid. On this point, he said, “it is too early to say how far we will be able to go at the Summit”, because “the Summit has never been a deadline”. “We hope to be able to make some progress towards the Summit, but it is too early to say,” warned the Secretary General, who announced that in Madrid will also be invited, “for the first time in our history, the Asia-Pacific partners, the Prime Ministers of New Zealand, Australia and Japan and the President of South Korea”.
Margarita Robles has been in Brussels since yesterday to participate in the NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting, just two weeks before the Madrid Summit. Yesterday included a meeting of the Contact Group for the Defense of Ukraine, formed by more than forty countries, among them Spain, together with other States and entities not belonging to the Alliance, such as Ukraine, Georgia, Sweden, Finland and the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell. The day concluded with a working dinner for the defense ministers at the Atlantic Alliance headquarters in Brussels.
