< Diplomats say NATO is highly unlikely to heed Ukraine's call for membership at a meeting on Tuesday, dashing Kiev's hopes for a political boost as it struggles on the battlefield and awaits the return of Donald Trump in the White House, reports "Reuters".
In a letter to his NATO counterparts ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga said the invitation would remove one of Russia's main arguments for waging its war - namely preventing Ukraine from joining the alliance.
But there are no signs of the necessary consensus among NATO's 32 members for such a decision at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
Commenting on the meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday that the Alliance was working on "building a bridge" to the membership of Ukraine. But he cautioned that the most pressing issue was providing Kiev with more weapons to repel Russian forces.
"The meeting over the next two days will largely focus on how to ensure that Ukraine, when it decides to enter peace talks, does so from a position of strength," he said.
"And to get there, it is critical that more military aid be sent to Ukraine."
Rutte said he welcomed recent announcements of more military aid to Ukraine from the United States, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Norway. On Monday, the US announced a new arms package for Ukraine worth $725 million.
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Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would not settle for anything less than NATO membership, citing its experience with a 30-year-old pact that saw it give up nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees for security from the great powers that never materialized.
"With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine's full membership in NATO," the ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine sees NATO membership as the best guarantee for its future security. Under Article 5 of the NATO Mutual Defense Pact, members agree to treat an attack against one as an attack against all and to come to each other's aid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested on Friday in an interview with Sky News that placing the territory currently controlled by his government "under the umbrella of NATO" will stop the "hot phase" of the war.
His comments come as Ukraine faces a tough winter on the battlefield as Moscow's troops advance east and Russian airstrikes target the country's crippled energy grid.
Although NATO has announced that Ukraine will join its ranks and that the country's path to NATO is "irreversible," it has not extended an invitation or given a timetable for membership.
Any such decision will depend primarily on NATO's dominant power, the United States, and will soon be in Trump's hands when he returns to office as US president next month.
Trump has criticized the scale of US aid to Kiev and said he would end the war within a day, although he has yet to outline a detailed plan for how he would deal with the conflict.
Some NATO members, such as Hungary, openly oppose Ukraine joining the alliance. Some others, including the current US and German governments, have signaled they don't think the time is right, diplomats say.