London CNN —President Joe Biden embarks on a weeklong trip to Europe on Sunday, and the stakes couldn’t be higher for the future of the NATO alliance. Biden makes a stop in London ahead of his attendance at the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, followed by meetings with Nordic leaders in Helsinki, Finland. But Biden will be a key player in determining what specific, measurable criteria or timelines, if any, are offered to Ukraine for NATO membership during this summit. Sweden’s NATO membership is “within reach,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a news briefing following a meeting of senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland Thursday. And I’m really looking – anxiously looking forward for your membership,” Biden told Kristersson during a meeting in the Oval Office.

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Persons: Joe Biden, Biden, month’s, Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s, Vladimir Putin’s, ”, Chris Skaluba, Michael McCaul, Jake Sullivan, “, Volodymyr Zelensky, ” Zelensky, Zelensky, Sweden’s, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Jens Stoltenberg, Stoltenberg, Ulf Kristersson, ” Biden, Kristersson, –, it’s, Max Bergmann, Bergmann, China’s “, Sullivan, King Charles III, Jill Biden, Finnegan Biden, Rishi Sunak Organizations: London CNN, NATO, Nordic, Transatlantic Security Initiative, Strategy, Security, Foreign, US House Foreign, CNN, Wall Street, Turkish, White, Eurasia Program, Stuart Center, Center for Strategic, International Studies Locations: Europe, London, Vilnius, Lithuania, Helsinki, Finland, Ukraine, Russia, Belarusian, Bucharest, Romania, Eastern Europe, Sweden, Turkey, NATO’s, Madrid, Vilnius “, United Kingdom, Windsor, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, China