BERLIN, July 9. /TASS/. NATO former Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that its would be "a strategic mistake" to wait for the conflict to be over before admitting Ukraine to NATO.

"It would be a strategic mistake with dangerous consequences," he said on Sunday in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12, when asked whether Ukraine should be admitted to NATO only after the conflict is over.

According to Rasmussen, delaying Ukraine’s NATO membership will be advantageous for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who "will be able to hinder Ukraine’s accession to NATO as long as he wants," and the conflict will be protracted for an indefinite time.

On Saturday, The Daily Telegraph reported citing an unnamed NATO source that at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius Germany will speak for delaying Ukraine’s admission to NATO for fears that its immediate membership may lead to a war with Russia. 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.