Biden vows to stand by Ukraine

US President Joe Biden used a speech before a cheering crowd in Vilnius on Wednesday to vow that the West will not abandon Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.

"We will not waver," he said in the courtyard of Vilnius University, saying that President Vladimir Putin had expected NATO to "break" -- but "he thought wrong".

"The defence of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It's the calling of our lifetime -- of all time."

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed new security commitments from the G7 powers, but warned that these could not be a substitute for eventual NATO membership.

Speaking after talks with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Zelenskyy said the G7 promises should be seen “not instead of NATO, but as security guarantees on our way to integration.”

“We can state that the results of this summit are good, but should we receive an invitation, then that would be the optimum,” he said at NATO’s summit in Vilnius.