NATO's Rutte aware of Ukraine 'victory plan,' discussing next steps

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -NATO chief Mark Rutte said he was aware of the details of Ukraine's "victory plan" that was presented by the country's president on Wednesday, and that he was in touch with the alliance's member countries on the next steps.

While reiterating a position that the process of making Ukraine a future NATO member - a key demand of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy - was "irreversible", Rutte said the victory plan included other elements and that he was discussing the full plan with members.

Zelenskiy said that an unconditional invite to join NATO was one of the points of his plan.

Rutte did not directly respond to Kyiv's demand for a formal invitation.

"NATO in Washington decided to make the path towards NATO membership for Ukraine (an) irreversible path," Rutte said. "We are in close contact with allies, with Ukraine, to see how we can take next steps, how to do that in a way which is also successful."

NATO allies have said Ukraine will join the alliance but also that Kyiv cannot join while at war and declined to put a timeline on membership.

"The victory plan, of course, we are very much debating with them and using every opportunity to take that one step by step further," Rutte said.

(Reporting by Lili Bayer, Sabine Siebold, writing by Tassilo Hummel, Lili Bayer, editing by Andrew Heavens, Charlotte Van Campenhout and Bernadette Baum)