This has been CNBC's live blog covering updates on the war in Ukraine. [Follow the latest updates here.]
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at NATO Tuesday for its lack of a timeline giving specific details for his country's future NATO membership, calling it "unprecedented and absurd."
The lagging, he said, gives Russia "motivation to continue its terror."
Shortly afterward at the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO leaders agreed on other official declaration, stating that Ukraine's future was inside the military alliance. However, it again failed to give a timetable and said conditions still needed to be met.
Meanwhile, Kyiv has come under Russian attack for the second time this month, while Ukraine's military says Russian forces have carried out 334 airstrikes on the wider country in the last week.
Ukrainian army's 35th Marine Brigade members conduct mine clearance work at a field in Donetsk, Ukraine on July 11, 2023.
-Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska arrived in Lithuania's capital on Tuesday as the NATO summit convenes and leaders discuss ongoing support for Kyiv amid Russia's ongoing war.
The group's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, stressed that Ukraine would receive a "strong, positive message on the path forward" regarding its membership.
But Zelenskyy remains frustrated that NATO has failed to lay out a timeline or give specific details for his country's future NATO membership, calling it "unprecedented and absurd" on Telegram.
Kyiv has been 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.
— Michele Luhn and Amanda Macias
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Kremlin was "struck" by the speed with which "neutral status" countries such as Finland and Sweden opted to join the NATO military alliance.
"We were struck by the speed that both Finland and Sweden renounced their neutral status, renounced the advantages that this neutral status provided them for many decades, provided them with relatively independent role, provided them with a reputation and authority both in Europe and on the international stage," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow during a press conference with visiting Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi.
Lavrov also said that Finland and Sweden have given up "special trade and economic investment and other relations with the Russian Federation" by joining NATO.
Lavrov's comments follow NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg's announcement that Sweden would become the 32nd member to join the military alliance. Finland became a NATO member in April.
— Amanda Macias
Kyrylo Barashkov, a 43-year-old immigration lawyer, in his own bunker in Kriukivschina, a small town near Kyiv on July 10, 2023. After several missiles exploded near his house outside Kyiv, Kyrylo Barashkov decided the only way to keep his family safe was to build his own bunker.
— Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
No ships have left Ukrainian ports under the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the last three days as the landmark agreement faces expiry, according to the U.N.-backed organization tracking export data.
Since the inception of the Black Sea grain deal last July, more than 32 million metric tons of foodstuffs and agricultural products have left Ukrainian ports. The agreement, which was brokered between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations, created a humanitarian sea corridor for agricultural goods.
The deal is set to expire in 6 days.
Over the weekend, one ship left Ukraine's port of Odesa carrying 27,000 metric tons of corn destined for Tunisia.
— Amanda Macias
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with U.S. lawmakers to discuss transferring F-16 fighter jets to Turkey as Ankara mulled Sweden's membership to NATO, a State Department official confirmed to NBC News.
Biden's top diplomat spoke with Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, among others according to the official.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to support Sweden's membership into the world's most military alliance following a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
— Amanda Macias
President Joe Biden held a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while the two attend the NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The meeting, which was agreed to over the weekend during a nearly one-hour phone call, comes on the heels of Erdogan's decision to support Sweden's application to join NATO.
"I want to thank you for your diplomacy and your courage to take that on. And I want to thank you for your leadership," Biden said seated next to Erdogan.
The Turkish leader thanked Biden and wished him luck in the upcoming presidential election.
— Amanda Macias
Kaja Kallas, PM of Estonia, speaks to CNBC's Steve Sedgwick at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Krišjānis Kariņš, PM of Latvia, speaks to CNBC's Steve Sedgwick at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
NATO leaders agreed at their summit Tuesday that Ukraine will be an extended an invitation into the military alliance. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg laid out the compromises that the NATO allies have come to on Ukraine.
"We will issue an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO when allies agree and conditions are met," he said according to NBC News.
The full written declaration can be found here.
-Matt Clinch
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Tuesday insisted that the future of Ukraine is in NATO but said swift accession negotiations can only take place when the war is over.
"The future of Ukraine is in NATO, there is no doubt about it," Pistorius said at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
"All of the other issues have to be talked about when the war is over. You can't really negotiate about the … membership of Ukraine in NATO while the war is going on. You have to wait for this moment and then we have to do it quickly, of course."
Asked by CNBC's Steve Sedgwick to clarify whether Germany wants to see Ukraine as a NATO member, Pistorius replied, "We always emphasize that … It is my point of view, yes."
— Sam Meredith
Russia's current account surplus — the level at which a country has more exports than imports — tanked 85% to $20.2 billion in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, the country's central bank said.
The bulk of the fall came from a drop in oil and gas revenues as Western sanctions took hold and prices for Urals crude fell. Russia's current account surplus actually hit a historic peak in 2022 as imports fell due to sanctions, while oil and gas sales — and energy commodity prices — were high.
— Natasha Turak
Russia launched drone attacks on Ukraine's capital Kyiv overnight, as well as on the Black Sea port city of Odesa and southeastern Kherson. Air alerts sounded across the country.
The strikes came just ahead of a key NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on Tuesday during which the alliance is set to establish a new defense strategy and usher in a new member, Sweden. Two people were reported injured and one dead in Ukraine's southeast, local authorities said, while no deaths were reported in Kyiv or Odesa.
"The enemy attacked Kyiv from the air for the second time this month," the head of Kyiv's military administration Serhiy Popko wrote on Telegram, according to a Google translation. Ukraine's air force said the drones were Iranian-made Shaheds, and that 28 were launched but 26 were shot down. NBC could not independently verify the information.
— Natasha Turak
NATO members are supposed to spend a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defense — but many don't.
The prime ministers of Spain, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and the president of Poland, discuss their spending plans with CNBC.
— Katrina Bishop
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
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
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
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