Israeli PMs keep snubbing Ukraine visit invitations, Zelensky tells NATO

Successive Israeli prime ministers have snubbed official invitations to Kyiv, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday at a press conference during the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as predecessors Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have all failed to take up the invitation, Zelensky told a reporter from Israeli public broadcaster Kan at the press conference.

"Mr. Netanyahu was invited to Kyiv, and I also invited the two prime ministers who preceded him to Ukraine… the prime ministers are different, the result is the same," Kan quoted Zelensky as saying.

Ukraine has also yet to receive military support from Israel despite multiple requests, Zelensky said at the press conference.

Kyiv has bemoaned the lack support from Israel since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Though Israel has provided Ukraine with humanitarian assistance, it has stopped short of providing Kyiv with military aid.

Israel has been wary of aggravating Russia - which backs the Syrian regime and controls much of Syria’s airspace - because it frequently conducts airstrikes on Syria with the stated aim of destroying military sites belonging to Iran and Iran-backed groups.

Israel’s envoy to Ukraine said last week that Kyiv’s backing of what he called "anti-Israel" resolutions at the UN was impacting support from Tel Aviv.

The envoy, Michael Brodsky, told a Ukrainian news outlet that Ukraine voted in favour of these "anti-Israel" resolutions "90 percent of the time".

Among resolutions Ukraine has backed is one that calls on the International Court of Justice to "urgently" weigh in on Israeli "annexation" of occupied Palestinian land.

Zelensky was at this week’s NATO summit in Vilnius with the hope of expediting his country's ascension to the military alliance.

In its last statement of the summit, NATO said "Ukraine’s future is in NATO" - but did not say when exactly that might happen.