Ukraine war live updates: Zelenskyy slams ‘absurd’ lack of timeline for Ukraine NATO membership; Sweden set to join after Turkey approval

Turkey will not hurt its relations with Russia, even as it forges stronger ties with its Western allies, Reuters cited a senior Turkish official as saying.

Turkey relieved NATO allies this week, as it lifted its 14-month long opposition to Sweden joining the alliance, enabling the expansion of the defense organization that Russia says is a root cause of its invasion of Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his country’s leverage as a NATO member to extract concessions from other states, including the formation of a European Union reform group to revive a path for Turkey to join the EU — a process that saw tumultuous starts and stops, ultimately meeting failure over previous decades.

Turkey refused to partake in Western sanctions on Russia, and its trade with Moscow ballooned in the last year as a result.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday said it is “unprecedented and absurd” that there is no timeframe for the invitation of membership of his country into the NATO military alliance.

“It looks like there is no readiness either to invite Ukraine to NATO or to make it a member of the Alliance,” he said on Telegram, according to a Google translation. “For Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror.”

Zelenskyy will be attending the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the group’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said earlier in the day. The NATO chief stressed that Ukraine would receive a “strong, positive message on the path forward” regarding its membership.

Kyiv has been stalwartly pushing for accession into NATO following Russia’s full-scale invasion, but officials of the security alliance have previously said its membership is unlikely to proceed while war is waged on Ukrainian territories.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The security situation in eastern Europe and particularly the Baltics has deteriorated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but even more so of late, the leader of Lithuania said.

“The security situation in our region is deteriorating. It’s not improving, it’s even not stable,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the NATO summit in Vilnius.

“We see additional capabilities sent to Kaliningrad region. Belarus as a close ally of Russia is playing a more and more important role. So we have to be aware that we have to take the decisions to strengthen all of the eastern flank,” he said.

Kaliningrad is a Russian exclave within Lithuania. Nauseda called for a more unified defense approach among NATO members and greater integration of defense systems between Nordic and Baltic countries.

His comments followed news of the apparent relocation of Wagner group forces, the Russian private mercenary group, to Belarus following a mysterious failed mutiny in late June.

— Natasha Turak

Europeans “don’t seem to understand” that moving NATO infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders is a “mistake,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in Reuters-reported comments on Tuesday, as NATO holds a major summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Peskov told a press briefing that NATO’s eastward expansion in Europe was what fomented the war in Ukraine to begin with. Western nations hold that Ukraine and other eastern European states reserve the sovereign right to join whatever alliance they choose, and that Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022 was an unprompted act of aggression.

Peskov added that Sweden’s now impending entry into NATO has negative implications for Russian national security. He said the Kremlin will be making “deep analysis” of the statements made at the NATO summit and will take necessary measures to ensure Russia’s security.

— Natasha Turak

Nordic states in NATO are a threat to no one and have united behind the alliance for common defense and deterrence purposes, Norway’s prime minister told CNBC.

For the first time in history, all of the Nordics will now be in NATO, creating — along with the Baltic states and Germany — what some are dubbing a “NATO lake” in northern Europe. This follows the recent development of Turkey agreeing to admit Sweden into the alliance, after more than a year of opposition.

Asked if this could draw retribution from Russia, Norwegian leader Jonas Gahr Store said, “Think about it this way; we are all members of NATO, but we don’t change as nations. We are a threat to none. We want peace and stability in our region.”

“The threat has come from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine,” the prime minister added. “That led Finland and Sweden to make historic decisions to join NATO … but we will still be Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark from the Nordic perspective. We will be contributing to peace, stability and cooperation, but there also has to be solid defense and deterrence, and that has been as a result of Russia’s aggression, that is a fact.”

— Natasha Turak

Russia’s war in Ukraine has proven counterproductive to President Vladimir Putin’s goals of reining in the enlargement of the NATO military alliance, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Tuesday.

“[Putin] went to war because he wanted less NATO. He’s getting more NATO,” Stoltenberg said ahead of the start of the U.S.-led coalition’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “Moscow, President Putin, does not have a veto on NATO enlargement.”

The Kremlin cited national security risks from Kyiv’s ambitions to enter the NATO alliance, before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Since then, Ukraine has doubled down on its intentions to join both NATO and the EU, while Finland has been accepted as a member. On Monday, Turkey finally endorsed Sweden’s membership bid.

— Ruxandra Iordache

NATO will send a “clear, positive message” on the path forward for Ukraine and its potential membership to the western defense alliance, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick during the Vilnius summit Tuesday.

When asked whether Ukraine could rely on any concrete guarantees of security, the NATO chief replied, “The most imminent task is that Ukraine remains a sovereign independent nation in Ukraine.”

“On the membership,” he added, “we will send a clear, positive message on the path forward. Text on communique will be made public within hours. I expect that allies will agree that is clear on the need to move Ukraine closer to NATO.”

Kyiv has been pushing for NATO membership since well before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Joining the alliance is now more important than ever to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government as they seek to project more strength in repelling Russia’s invasion, but many NATO leaders fear pulling the organization’s members into a war with Russia.

— Natasha Turak

Kyiv’s ties to NATO have deepened since a 2008 summit in which it was agreed that Georgia and Ukraine would join the U.S.-led military alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday at a coalition summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

“Ukraine has come a long way since we made that decision in 2008 that the next step will be a membership action plan,” he said.

“Ukraine is much closer to NATO, so I think the time has come to reflect that in also the NATO decisions. So, all put together, including that we made clear that Ukraine will become a member, we moved the membership action plan, we make their forces interoperable NATO forces, we establish the NATO-Ukraine council, all that together will send a very strong and positive message from NATO to Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s prospective NATO accession will be one of the key discussion points of the Vilnius summit, which has already seen Turkey finally endorse Sweden’s membership bid.

Russian forces carried out a drone strike against Kyiv early Tuesday, Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv military administration, said on Telegram, according to a Google translation.

Moscow deployed Iranian-made Shahed drones, which were destroyed before they could hit their targets. This was the Kremlin’s second air offensive against the Ukrainian capital this month, Popko said.

“Tonight, our region suffered another attack by the Russians. This time the enemy used drones. The air alert lasted almost two hours,” Kyiv regional military head Ruslan Kravchenko said on Telegram, according to a Google translation. “All enemy targets were shot down by air defense forces. No hits were recorded. There are no victims.”

CNBC could not independently verify developments on the ground.

— Ruxandra Iordache

The U.S. and some other NATO member states are not willing to allow Ukraine to join the alliance right now, despite Kyiv’s repeated calls to join and insistence that its membership should be approved during this week’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

“In terms of Ukraine itself, President Biden, the Germans, and others, the French, are not willing to give Ukraine membership right now,” Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told CNBC. 

“President Biden said after the war is over Ukraine will get the membership,” he said. “The big question of course is if all of the territory of Ukraine is not liberated, what about that? Does that commit NATO to a war against Russia to liberate the Ukrainian territory? Probably not.”

The primary concern among the United States, France and Germany is the role of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that all members must defend any member state that is attacked by a non-NATO state. As a result of that, NATO does not accept new member states that are currently at war or have land occupied by an adversarial power.

“The majority of the alliance stands firmly with us,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message Monday.

“When we applied for membership of NATO, we spoke frankly: de facto, Ukraine is already in the alliance,” he said. “Our weapons are the weapons of the alliance. Our values are what the alliance believes in … Vilnius must confirm all this.”

— Natasha Turak

Ukraine said in the past week Russian forces launched 39 missiles and 334 air strikes across Ukraine, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maliar said on the Telegram platform.

Meanwhile, Maliar said that Ukrainian forces carried out more than 79 strikes on Russian positions and on 11 ammunition depots. Ukraine also destroyed 24 Russian anti-aircraft missile systems and nearly 40 Iranian-made Shahed precision-attack suicide drones.

— Amanda Macias

President Joe Biden hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to ratify Sweden’s ascension protocols, bringing the Nordic country one step closer to NATO membership.

“I stand ready to work with President Erdogan and Türkiye on enhancing defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area,” Biden wrote in a statement.

“I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister [Ulf] Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd NATO ally. And I thank Secretary General Stoltenberg for his steadfast leadership,” Biden added.

Last May, Sweden and Finland began the formal process of applying to NATO. All 30 members of the alliance have to ratify the countries’ entry into the world’s most powerful military alliance.

Last August, Biden signed ratification documents to bring Finland and Sweden into NATO. In April, Finland joined the alliance as its 31st member.

— Amanda Macias

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson agreed to move forward with Sweden’s ascension to the NATO alliance.

“This is an historic step which makes all NATO allies stronger and safer,” Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter.

Sweden formally applied for NATO membership a year ago alongside its Nordic neighbor, Finland.

Both Finland and Sweden already meet many of the requirements to be NATO allies. Some of the requirements include having a functioning democratic political system, a willingness to provide economic transparency and the ability to make military contributions to NATO missions.

Despite some initial sticking points with Turkey, Finland joined the military alliance in April.

— Amanda Macias