Though the Ukrainian president is widely expected to attend the summit in some form, NATO has yet to confirm whether he is actually invited. Diplomats say he may attend a pre-summit dinner but be kept away from the main summit meeting.
The careful steps are all being taken to avoid angering Washington, much less provoking any repeat of February's White House blow-up between Trump and Zelenskiy that almost torpedoed the international coalition supporting Kyiv.
If Zelenskiy does not attend in some form, it would be “at least a PR disaster”, acknowledged a senior NATO diplomat.
But since Washington's shift under Trump towards partly accepting Russia's justifications for the war and disparaging Zelenskiy, the 32-member alliance no longer speaks with a single voice about Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. Trump has taken Ukraine's NATO membership off the table, unilaterally granting Moscow one of its main demands.
Since then, the two men publicly mended fences in a meeting in St Peter's Basilica for the funeral of Pope Francis. But mostly they have spoken remotely, with Zelenskiy twice phoning the White House on speakerphone while surrounded by four friendly Europeans -- Britain's Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Friedrich Merz and Poland's Donald Tusk.
Trump is expected to come away from The Hague with a big diplomatic victory as NATO members heed his longstanding complaints that they do not spend enough on defence and agree a much higher target.
But the summit itself and its accompanying written statement are expected to be unusually short, minimising the chances of flare-ups or disagreements. A pledge to develop recommendations for a new Russia strategy has been kicked into the long grass.
Unlike at NATO's previous two annual summits, the leaders do not plan to hold a formal meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, the official venue for talks between the alliance and Kyiv. The senior NATO diplomat said a working dinner with either foreign ministers or defence ministers could instead serve as an NUC.
On Wednesday, NATO boss Mark Rutte said he had invited Ukraine to the summit, but sidestepped a question on whether the invitation included Zelenskiy himself.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not reply to questions about the nature of any invitation to Ukraine.
Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said he would like to see a “delegation led by President Zelenskiy”. Asked about an invitation for Zelenskiy, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said “I, for my part, strongly welcome the invitation” without giving further details.
A senior European diplomat said: “We should not get stuck on ‘NUC or no NUC’. If he comes to the leaders’ dinner, that would be the minimum.”
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