Andrzej Duda made the remark at a media briefing in the Lithuanian capital on Wednesday morning, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Speaking ahead of the summit’s second and final day, the Polish president said that NATO was “faced with the fact of Russian aggression in Ukraine and with the threat from Moscow.”
Duda added: “This threat is real. And so admitting Ukraine, another huge European country, a country twice the size of Poland, to NATO in the future, with Ukraine’s great natural resources and its big, battle-hardened army, will definitely represent a big boost for NATO, and by extension also for Poland.”
The president noted that Poland was "currently among the alliance’s easternmost members."
He stated: “If Ukraine is admitted to NATO, as I hope it will, the alliance’s eastern flank will be significantly extended further east.”
Duda said he and fellow NATO leaders on Tuesday discussed “a whole succession of measures designed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank.”
He added that “the issue of Ukraine’s future, when it comes to its membership of NATO, was the most discussed topic.”
The Polish president told reporters: “The Vilnius Summit Communiqué states clearly that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. It also says that Ukraine’s path to NATO has moved beyond the need for a Membership Action Plan. This is very important.”
Duda also said that the creation of a new NATO-Ukraine Council "as part of a package of measures" was designed to bring Kyiv closer to the alliance.
He said the package also included “a multi-year assistance programme” to facilitate the transition of the Ukrainian armed forces from Soviet-era to NATO standards.
“This is a move of enormous significance,” Duda added.
The Polish president announced that after returning from Vilnius, he would convene a meeting of the National Security Council, which brings together Poland’s senior government ministers and lawmakers.
The president said he would brief the advisory body on the outcomes of the NATO summit, as well as "consult Poland’s current security situation," the PAP news agency reported.
After the media briefing, Duda joined fellow NATO leaders for a “meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of heads of state and government, with Sweden, Indo-Pacific partners, and the European Union,” the PAP news agency reported.
On Wednesday afternoon, NATO leaders were set to hold the first meeting of the newly created NATO-Ukraine Council “at the level of heads of state and government,” with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in attendance, according to officials.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Wednesday is day 504 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, rp.pl, NATO