The White House has approved providing Ukraine with cluster munitions and is set to announce a drawdown of the weapons from the Defense Department on Friday. President Biden’s decision, as reported by The Post, comes amid concerns about the pace of Kyiv’s counteroffensive and dwindling Western stocks of conventional artillery — and after internal debate about the controversial weapons that are banned by most countries.
Also Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are scheduled to meet in Istanbul for talks likely to focus on Sweden’s bid for NATO membership and a soon-to-expire grain deal with Russia that was brokered by Turkey and allows Ukraine to export agricultural products through the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, questions remain about the agreement under which the Wagner leader at the helm of the failed rebellion against Russian defense officials avoided insurgency charges. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Thursday that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the chief of the mercenary Wagner Group, was in Russia. A St. Petersburg businessman, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, confirmed Prigozhin’s presence in the country and said money and weapons seized by Russian authorities had been returned to him, The Washington Post reported. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Ukraine wants and expects an invitation to join NATO. Allies are not sure: Top Ukrainian officials are hoping that next week’s NATO summit in Lithuania will bring a “clear signal” that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance, anchoring the country in the West’s security infrastructure and sending an unequivocal message to Moscow, David L. Stern, Emily Rauhala and Isabelle Khurshudyan report.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, said the summit “must end” with Zelensky and Stoltenberg proclaiming an invitation for Kyiv to join the bloc. But just days before leaders arrive in the Lithuanian capital, it’s far from clear this will happen, and NATO allies are still negotiating what exactly to offer Ukraine.