MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The Membership Action Plan (MAP) in NATO should not be an obligatory procedure for Ukraine in the process of its accession to the alliance, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said at a joint briefing with his Estonian counterpart Margus Tsahkna.

"We believe that the MAP should no longer be considered an element on the way to membership. It is a mechanism that has outlived its usefulness and should not be applied to Ukraine," the Ukrainian news outlet European Pravda quoted the top diplomat as saying. Kuleba explained that granting Ukraine the MAP under the current circumstances "has lost its relevance as the next step on the way to NATO."

He added that one of the main topics of his talks with his Estonian counterpart was preparations for the NATO summit in Vilnius. "The key thing, of course, is a step towards Ukraine's membership in NATO and security guarantees for Ukraine," Kuleba said.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier admitted that the country will not join NATO as long as there is fighting on its territory. And on June 1, at the summit of the European political community, he said that Kiev's hopes of joining the alliance "are becoming more and more distant," expressing disappointment.

Finland and Sweden began the NATO accession process without the MAP stage. They bypassed the standard procedure because of their high readiness for membership and close adherence to Alliance standards.