BBC News reports:

Czech President-elect Petr Pavel has told the BBC that Ukraine should be allowed to join Nato “as soon as the war is over”.

Mr Pavel, a retired Nato general, said Ukraine would be “morally and practically ready” to join the Western alliance once the conflict had ended.

In his first broadcast interview with the international media since his election, Gen Pavel gave a robust defence of Western military support to Kyiv, saying there should be “almost no limits” to what countries should send.

Speaking from the renaissance Hrzansky Palace, a few hundred metres from Prague Castle, he said for him sending Western fighter planes such as F-16s was “not taboo”, but he was unsure they could be delivered in a timeframe that could prove useful to Kyiv. [Continue reading…]