By Andrew Gray, John Irish and Sabine Siebold
VILNIUS (Reuters) -&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;leaders gather for a&nbsp;summit&nbsp;in Vilnius on Tuesday seeking to overcome divisions on&nbsp;Ukraine's membership&nbsp;bid&nbsp;after&nbsp;a&nbsp;deal&nbsp;to lift&nbsp;Turkey's block on&nbsp;Sweden&nbsp;joining the military alliance.
The&nbsp;summit&nbsp;in the Lithuanian capital will be dominated by the repercussions of Russia's invasion of&nbsp;Ukraine, with leaders set to approve&nbsp;NATO's first comprehensive plans since the end of the Cold War to defend against any attack from Moscow.
Diplomats said differences were narrowing over&nbsp;Ukraine's push for&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;membership. While&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;members agree Kyiv cannot join during the war, they have disagreed over how quickly it could happen&nbsp;afterwards and under what conditions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has been invited to attend the Vilnius gathering, has been pressing&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;to give his country a clear pathway to membership in the&nbsp;summit&nbsp;communique so that it can join soon&nbsp;after&nbsp;the war is over.
"We are still working on the wording ... but we already understand the fact that&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;will be in the Alliance," Zelenskiy said on Twitter on Monday evening.
He said&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;was "working to make the algorithm for gaining membership as clear and fast as possible".
NATO&nbsp;members in Eastern Europe have backed Kyiv's stance, arguing that bringing&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;under&nbsp;NATO's collective security umbrella is the best way to deter Russia from attacking again.
NATO&nbsp;was formed in 1949 with the primary aim of countering the risk of a Soviet attack on allied territory.
Countries such as the United States and Germany have been more cautious, wary of any move that they fear could draw&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;into a direct conflict with Russia, and potentially spark a global war.
Assertions that "Ukraine's rightful place is in&nbsp;NATO" and that it will join "when conditions allow" are among the phrases being discussed for the final text, diplomats say.
Some of&nbsp;Ukraine's eastern allies want the word "invitation" or "invite" to be included.
Negotiations have also focused on what conditions&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;would have to meet to join&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;and how its progress should be tracked, diplomats say.
JOURNEY WITHOUT A MAP
NATO&nbsp;Secretary General Stoltenberg said on Monday he had proposed&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;could skip a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - a process for meeting political, economic and military goals.
"I am absolutely certain that we will have unity and a strong message on&nbsp;Ukraine," Stoltenberg told reporters.
Moscow criticised the two-day&nbsp;summit&nbsp;in advance. According to the RIA news agency, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova predicted it would be "a colourful spectacle in the worst traditions of Western manipulation".
Russia's invasion of&nbsp;Ukraine&nbsp;in February last year prompted Nordic neighbours Finland and&nbsp;Sweden&nbsp;to abandon decades of military non-alignment and apply to join&nbsp;NATO.
Finland became&nbsp;NATO's 31st member in April but&nbsp;Sweden's accession has been held up by a dispute with&nbsp;Turkey.
That impasse appeared to have come to an end&nbsp;after&nbsp;talks in Vilnius on Monday evening, when Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan agreed to send&nbsp;Sweden's application to the Turkish parliament for ratification. Stoltenberg hailed the move as "historic".
Turkey&nbsp;had accused&nbsp;Sweden&nbsp;of not doing enough to crack down on militants that Ankara sees as terrorists, mainly members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist organisation by&nbsp;Turkey, the EU and the United States.
Sweden, backed by Stoltenberg and many&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;members, said it had kept all its undertakings to&nbsp;Turkey&nbsp;on the issue.
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Erdogan agreed to further steps on Monday evening, including establishing a new "Security Compact" on fighting terrorism.
The two also agreed to step up economic cooperation and&nbsp;Sweden&nbsp;committed to support efforts to revive the moribund process of moving&nbsp;Turkey&nbsp;closer to the European Union.
"This has been a good day for&nbsp;Sweden," Kristersson told reporters, saying the joint statement represented "a very big step" toward final ratification of&nbsp;Sweden's&nbsp;NATO&nbsp;membership.
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(Additional reporting by Ronald Popeski and Lidia Kelly; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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NATO summit seeks agreement on Ukraine bid after Turkey deal on Sweden