NATO makes Ukraine membership pledge before summit
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NATO’s leader says the military alliance will unite at a summit on how to bring Ukraine closer to joining as the United States confirmed it would supply Kyiv with widely-banned cluster munitions for its counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reaffirmed his view that Ukraine would become a member but it remained unclear what Kyiv would be offered next week at the NATO summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
“Our summit will send a clear message: NATO stands united, and Russia’s aggression will not pay,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference in Brussels.
It comes as rights groups and the United Nations secretary-general questioned Washington’s decision on the munitions, part of an $800 million security package that brings total US military aid to more than $40 billion since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who describes the conflict as a “special military operation” to protect Russian security, has said the US and its allies were fighting an expanding proxy war.
The cluster munitions “will deliver in a time frame that is relevant for the counteroffensive”, a Pentagon official told reporters.
Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries.
They typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area and those that fail to explode pose a danger for decades after a conflict ends.
“Ukraine has provided written assurances that it is going to use these in a very careful way” to minimise risks to civilians, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
US President Joe Biden described the decision on cluster bombs as difficult but said Ukraine needed them.
“They’re trying to get through those trenches, and stop those tanks from rolling,” Biden said in an interview with CNN.
“It was not an easy decision.”
Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, raised “serious concerns” about decisions by Washington and the NATO leadership, RIA news agency reported.
It quoted Karasin as saying that Russia “of course, will respond to this”.
Ukraine says it has taken back some villages in southern Ukraine since the counteroffensive began in early June, but that it lacks the firepower and air cover to make faster progress.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield situation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey a day after talks in Bulgaria to drum up support for NATO membership before the alliance’s summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said after meeting Zelenskiy Ukraine deserved NATO membership and Ankara would continue working on a negotiated end to the war.
In Prague, Zelenskiy won a pledge of support for Ukraine to join NATO “as soon as the war is over”, and in Sofia secured backing for membership “as soon as conditions allow”.
Zelenskiy has acknowledged Kyiv is unlikely to be able to join NATO while at war with Russia.
Biden, in an excerpt of a CNN interview that aired on Friday, underscored the point.
“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO” about Ukraine joining now, he said.
Putin has threatened unspecified action if Ukraine joins NATO.
At the UN, aid chief Martin Griffiths warned Russia it should not “chuck away” an agreement it made a year ago on the safe wartime passage of agricultural exports, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Russia has threatened to quit the deal, which expires on July 17, because several demands to export its own grain and fertiliser have not been met.
Reuters
