VILNIUS, July 12. /TASS/. NATO declined to invite Ukraine to join the bloc as that would have automatically set off a direct war with Russia, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at a public forum on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Alliance’s Vilnius summit on Wednesday.

"There was broad consensus in the alliance that bringing Ukraine into NATO now, in the middle of the war, would mean NATO would be at war with Russia, and, I think, across the alliance, there was a view that NATO ending up in a war with Russia at this moment doesn’t make sense," Sullivan clarified.

Secondly, he said, waiving the standard NATO accession requirement of a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Kiev was a move that all member states could agree on, and, thirdly, there was broad consensus that Ukraine has made "substantial steps along the reform path" as regards both security sector and democratic reforms. "But there are more steps to take as well" for Kiev to fulfill the requirements for becoming a NATO member, Sullivan said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that the 31 NATO allies had agreed to waive the MAP requirement in the case of Ukraine, thereby somewhat easing Kiev’s path toward eventually receiving an invitation to join the alliance when "conditions are met." Stoltenberg emphasized that Kiev should focus on rebuilding its security and defense sectors. The NATO chief also noted that no timeframes had been set previously in the process of accepting other member states into the bloc.