Ukraine war: Russia blames shelling inside border town on Kyiv - BBC News
Shelling in the Russian region of Belgorod wounds eight people and strikes in Kyiv kill three people, officials say.
For Ukraine, the answer is obvious. Yes, because once it is inside the protective shelter of the Western alliance then any future attacks by Russia would oblige the whole of Nato to come to its defence - with troops, not just equipment.

The former US Army Commander in Europe, Lt.Gen Ben Hodges, told the BBC: "Europe will be safer with Ukraine in Nato. Russia won’t attack Ukraine once it’s in Nato".

He said the coming Nato summit in Vilnius would be a huge failure of credibility if there was no clear message about the inevitability of Ukraine joining Nato.

But on the other side of the argument, this would raise the stakes dramatically. What if Ukraine’s future Nato membership failed to deter Russian aggression and conflict erupted on its borders?

That would mean Nato was then at war with Russia, with all the accompanying risks of nuclear escalation.

Russian nationalists, including President Putin, already consider Nato's eastwards expansion to be an intolerable provocation.

It’s hard to predict how Moscow would react to Europe’s second largest nation, and a place some consider to be a part of Russia, joining an alliance that it now views as an implacable enemy.