LONDON, July 9. /TASS/. During the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Germany will speak out in favor of delaying Ukraine’s NATO membership bid for fears that it may lead to a war with Russia, The Telegraph reported citing an unnamed NATO source.

"Berlin is stand-offish at the prospect of offering immediate membership," the source was quoted as saying. "It wants a process and time to develop guarantees to essentially block membership."

In his words, the German government "doesn’t want to see" the Russian government "potentially test Article 5" on collective defense.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the US, UK and EU states are currently drawing up a series of bilateral security offerings they hope will help defend Kyiv in absence of accession to NATO.

At the same time, a number of Eastern European leaders, including Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas, believe that Ukraine should be offered a roadmap to accession at the summit in Vilnius.

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the participation of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the first session of the Ukraine-NATO council to be held on the sidelines of the upcoming Vilnius summit. Moreover, he said that NATO will have to negotiate a three-point plan during the summit in Vilnius that will take the Ukraine closer to the accession to the alliance. However, he stopped short of saying that Ukraine will be invited to join NATO after hostilities in the country are over.