Kyiv, Oct. 7 -- Military representatives from all of NATO's 32 member states have arrived in Kyiv for the first visit by the alliance's Military Committee to Ukraine in eight years.
The visit came a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said possible Ukrainian membership of NATO, one of the central issues in the Ukraine conflict, "is not on the table as we speak".
Moscow has long opposed NATO's eastward expansion and has made Ukrainian neutrality a key condition for any settlement, arguing that the alliance's presence in Ukraine would pose a direct threat to Russian national security.
Ukraine made NATO membership a foreign policy priority after the 2014 Maidan uprising and later enshrined the goal in its constitution.
In September...