Lithuania

VILNIUS, July 11. /TASS/: NATO countries have adopted a long-term program of military assistance to Ukraine and agreed to set up the Ukraine-NATO Council, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday.

"Today, Allies have agreed a package of three elements to bring Ukraine closer to NATO," he told a news conference on the results of the summit’s first day.

VILNIUS, July 11 (Reuters) - NATO leaders agreed on Tuesday that Ukraine's future lies within the alliance but they stopped short of handing Kyiv the invitation or timetable for accession it sought, a stance that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier criticised as "absurd".

The leaders met at a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as a Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russian invasion forces occupying parts of the country was proceeding more slowly than Kyiv had hoped.

VILNIUS, July 11 (Reuters) - France will join Britain in supplying Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles, which can travel 250 km (155 miles), a move that allows Ukrainian forces to hit Russian troops and supplies deep behind front lines, French officials said on Tuesday.

Emmanuel Macron said he had decided to boost military aid to Ukraine to help its counteroffensive as the French President arrived at a summit of the 31-member NATO alliance in Lithuania.

VILNIUS, July 10 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday agreed to forward to parliament Sweden's bid to join the NATO military alliance, appearing to end months of drama over an issue that had strained the bloc as war has raged in Ukraine.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning their policies of military non-alignment that had lasted through the decades of the Cold War in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday hailed an agreement for Sweden to join NATO as more work remained to determine a path forward for Ukraine’s future with the alliance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized as “absurd” the absence of a timetable for his country’s entry.

Biden described the summit as a “historic moment” and said the United States agreed with a proposal, yet to be released publicly, to outline a path for Ukraine’s eventual membership.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to send Sweden’s NATO accession protocol to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible.”

Stoltenberg made the announcement after talks with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on the eve of a NATO summit in Lithuania.

Sweden’s NATO accession has been held up by objections from Turkey since last year.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A pair of colorful children’s scooters rest against the yellow tracks of a battle tank, parked in the shade of skyscrapers in the Vilnius business district. The area, usually busy with cars, cyclists and pedestrians, is closed to traffic and packed with heavy armored vehicles.

VILNIUS, June 9. /TASS/: The Estonian Foreign Ministry on Friday banned 58 Russians, including Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia, from entering the country.

"Today, Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna reintroduced the ‘Magnitsky List,’ which bans 58 people, including the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill and nine people who persecuted and imprisoned human rights activist Vladimir Kara-Murza (recognized in Russia as a foreign agent - TASS) from entering Estonia," the Estonian Foreign Ministry said on its website.

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — France’s top diplomat said Thursday that she hoped the NATO applications of Sweden and Finland would be “ratified quickly” as the Turkish parliament was expected to vote soon on whether Finland should join the 30-member alliance.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna referred to an upcoming NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital in July when she said that “we hope this summit will be a success and that there will be 32 countries at the Vilnius summit.”

VILNIUS, Lithuania, Feb 21 (APP): Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Tuesday met his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis and held talks on expanding bilateral cooperation in the areas of trade, investment and education.

The two Foreign Ministers, who exchanged views on regional and international issues, also signed an agreement regarding the establishment of a bilateral consultative mechanism on this occasion.