NATO aims to hold the first meeting of the new cooperation body with Ukraine, the Ukraine-NATO Council, at the Vilnius Summit in July.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced this following a two-day meeting of Defence Ministers of the Alliance, as reported by the correspondent of "European Pravda" from Brussels.

"We are also working on establishing a new Ukraine-NATO Council, where Ukraine will be on an equal footing with NATO allies, consulting and making decisions of common interest. Our ambition is to have the first meeting of the new Council in Vilnius with President Zelenskyy," he said.

"We agreed that NATO's doors are open. Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance. This is a decision of the allies and Ukraine. Russia does not have a veto," Stoltenberg added.

The day before, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced that Ukraine and NATO would replace their current format of official meetings, known as the Commission, with a new Council format at the summit in Vilnius in July or afterward.