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In the run-up to this year’s annual NATO summit in Vilinius, Lithuania, all eyes were on what prospects the alliance would give Ukraine on becoming a member. No one expected that Ukraine would be given full membership while the war was still going on. 

But some kind of clear signal was expected. It did not come. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, upon learning of the final language of the NATO leaders’ communiqué, tweeted angrily that it’s “unprecedented and absurd” not to set a time frame for Ukraine’s NATO membership. Members of the U.S. delegation were “furious” with Zelensky’s outburst, and in a private meeting reportedly urged him to cool down and embrace what the security aid he was being promised.

Assignment editor Damir Marusic and columnists Max Boot and Josh Rogin discuss all this drama, and what implications it has for the future of the war in Ukraine.