Anxious Germany is preparing to block the Ukraine NATO application for accession

Germany will insist on postponing Ukraine's accession because it fears that this step could drive the alliance into a war with Russia.

A source of the alliance said that Berlin would use the annual NATO summit this week in Vilnius, Lithuania, to urge others to concentrate on security allowances and not on accession proposals to help Ukraine if there is no accession.

"Berlin is the prospect of offering immediate membership," to the reluctant to offer, "the source told The Telegraph. "It takes a process and time to develop guarantees to essentially block membership."

"Berlin does not want Wladimir Putin possibly test article 5."

According to the Article 5 clause of the NATO alliance, every member state that is attacked by an external attacker has the right to demand military intervention from the other allies.

Joe Biden seemed to repeat the German concerns and said he wanted to avoid a situation in which "We are all in war, we are in a war with Russia."

Mr. Biden added that Ukraine was "not ready" for NATO membership and that it would "take a while".

his national security advisor Jake Sullivan said: "We are not striving to trigger the Third World War. After this summit, Ukraine will not join NATO."

Wolodymyr Selenskyj, the Ukrainian President, gradually reinforced his campaign for a NATO joining Ukraine after Russia's invasion of last year and is trying to drive a clear wedge between his country and Moscow.

The war guide asked the 31 NATO member states to take concrete steps towards Ukrainian membership so that his country can quickly join the transatlantic alliance after the war.

Germany and the United States have warned privately that this step could escalate the current conflict for an active war between NATO and Russia.

Mr. Putin has often claimed that NATO's expansion towards the Russian borders has been a key factor for his decision to invade Ukraine over the past two decades.

Since then, the Russian President threatens to use nuclear weapons in the war, which in western countries fueled fears of escalation.

The United States, the United Kingdom and the EU countries are currently preparing a number of bilateral security offers, of which they hope to help defend Kiev if there is no accession to NATO.

But Eastern heads of state and government, such as the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, argue that a timetable should be offered on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mr. Biden said: "I don't think there is agreement on NATO whether Ukraine should now be included in the NATO family at this moment, in the middle of the war."

"If the war continues, then we are all in war, we are in a war with Russia, that would be the case."

He said that a "rational way" for Ukraine had to be shown in order to meet the prerequisites for membership, including "democratization and a whole range of other topics".

Mr. Biden said that he had spoken to Mr. Selenskyj "in detail" and the United States was in the meantime to "offer security similar to security that we offer Israel".

"So I think we can do it, but I think it is premature to say that we should now ask for a vote."

The USA pays between two and four billion dollars to Israel for the expansion of its military between 2019 and 2028.

To put his western partners under pressure, Mr. Selenskyj threatened to miss the meeting unless he can bring good news to his people after the meeting.

He said that a explanation signed by NATO in 2008 in Bucharest, in which it was said that "the door is open to Kiev", is not enough.

"We need a clear signal," Mr. Selenskyj told reporters on a trip to the Czech Republic.

"that Ukraine will be in alliance. Not that the door is open - that's not enough."

NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg has already excluded an official invitation to the summit, since an expansion of the alliance requires the unanimous approval of its 31 members.

diplomats and civil servants have described their likelihood of Kiev as the "Bucharest Plus", which is a sign that it is based on their previous promise to add Ukraine to the alliance, but do not serve as an absolute guarantee.

The security guarantees lying on the table would make up for this, add.

According to reports, the United States, Germany and France are working on a number of bilateral offers to concretize their support for Kiev in legally binding agreements.

It would consolidate the fatal help of the West as well as its training package and future developments such as the donation of F-16 fighter aircraft.

Individual national offers to Kiev would then be provided as part of a framework agreement, a “memorandum of understanding”, which is approved by NATO and the EU

sources said that it was the "next best offer" to Kiev, the membership and article 5 protection for the time being.