TOP HEADLINES

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it would be absurd if Ukraine is not offered a timeframe for NATO membership at an alliance summit in Lithuania.

• NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine would get a "positive message" on its path to membership on Tuesday, as leaders of the Western military alliance meet to discuss the fallout from the conflict with Russia.

• A Russian military official who had commanded a submarine in the Black Sea and appeared on a Ukrainian blacklist of alleged war criminals has been shot dead by an unknown assassin while on his morning run.

• Russia is taking "appropriate" and timely measures in response to the possible accession of Sweden and Ukraine to the NATO military alliance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

• France will join Britain in supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine, a move that allows Ukrainian forces to hit Russian troops and supply dumps deep behind the frontlines.

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the NATO summit that the necessary arrangements would be made to ensure Ukraine receives security assurances for after the conflict.

IN DEPTH

Zelenskyy demands progress over Ukraine's NATO membership bid

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it would be absurd if Ukraine is not offered a timeframe for NATO membership at an alliance summit in Lithuania.

Divisions in NATO are expected to prevent the Western military alliance offering Kyiv a date for accession or a straightforward invitation to join during the summit taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"It's unprecedented and absurd when a time frame is not set, neither for the invitation (to join NATO) nor for Ukraine's membership. While at the same time vague wording about 'conditions' is added even for inviting Ukraine," he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Zelenskyy and his team have been pressing NATO for a clear path for Ukraine to join once the conflict is over.

He said lingering uncertainty over Ukraine's NATO membership would mean "a window of opportunity is being left to bargain over Ukraine's membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia.

"And for Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror," he said.

Indicating that he would attend the summit, he said: "Uncertainty is weakness. And I will openly discuss this at the summit."

Moscow said it was following the NATO summit closely and that it would take "measures to protect Russia's own security."

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