Latest in Ukraine: Biden Says Ukraine Not Ready for NATO Membership

Latest developments:

Russian air defense systems downed four missiles Sunday, Russian officials said on Telegram.  One of the drones was shot down over the annexed Crimean Peninsula and three over Russia's Rostov and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine. Moscow alleges Ukraine regularly targets areas inside Russia. Kyiv denies these accusations, saying it is fighting a defensive war.  
Turkey favors Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. “Without a doubt, Ukraine deserves to be in NATO,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Istanbul.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the Black Sea grain deal in a phone call with Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan on Sunday, Russia's foreign ministry said. Moscow has been threatening to quit the deal, expiring July 17, that allows the safe passage of grain and fertilizer from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea if its terms to export its own grain and fertilizer are not met.  
The British defense ministry said Sunday that Russian state media outlets were caught off guard by last month’s Wagner Group mutiny. “Outlets were almost certainly initially surprised by the mutiny and were not prepared,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine is not ready for membership with NATO before the war’s end, said U.S. President Joe Biden. 

If Ukraine were to join the alliance during the war, he told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday, “we are at war with Russia if that were the case,” meaning the NATO alliance will be dragged into the conflict.

The U.S. president also said that before Ukraine is considered for NATO membership, it will take time to meet all the qualifications required “from democratization to a whole range of other issues.” In the meantime, he expressed the U.S. commitment to provide Ukraine “the weaponry they need, the capacity to defend themselves.”

Biden will be in Europe this week for a three-nation tour that includes attending the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania July 11-12. He said there is no unanimity in NATO on whether to bring Ukraine into the alliance in the middle of the war, emphasizing that “holding NATO together is really critical.”

Watch related video by Patsy Widakuswara:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” show, that during the summit, he hopes to “do whatever he can to…. expedite solutions for an agreement with our partners.” 

Zelenskyy also touted Ukraine’s value as a future NATO country member “with actually the strongest armed forces in Europe.” He added, “Ninety percent of Ukrainians want to be a part of NATO. More than 90 percent of Ukrainians want to be a part of the European Union.” 

Ukraine shelling

At least eight civilians were killed and 13 wounded by Russian artillery Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Lyman, a key railway junction in the eastern Donetsk region.

Russian forces tried to advance in the Lyman sector but were repelled, the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces reported. It said at least 10 towns and villages were struck by the shelling, which started fires that burned a house, printing shop and three cars in the area.

The attacks came as Ukraine marked the 500th day of the Russian invasion.

US allies on cluster bombs

National Security Council spokesperson Kirby Sunday defended the U.S. decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, saying that it will keep the country “in the fight,” as Ukrainian forces are running out of regular artillery ammunition. 

U.S. allies and Russia reacted Saturday to the U.S. decision to supply Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions that are banned by more than 100 entities, though not the U.S., Russia and Ukraine.

Canada, Britain, Spain, Germany and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres all expressed opposition to the U.S. decision.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the U.S. announcement to deliver cluster bombs to Kyiv and promised the munitions would be used only in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories and not in Russia.Reznikov said on Twitter that the new weapons “will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.”

Cluster munitions typically release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area. Those that fail to explode upon contact with the ground then pose a danger for decades.

Moscow described the U.S. decision as another egregious example of Washington’s anti-Russian course.

Biden defended the U.S. move Friday, calling it a “difficult decision.” “It took me a while to be convinced to do it,” Biden said in a CNN interview, underscoring the cluster munitions would help Ukraine to “stop those [Russian] tanks from rolling.”

Biden’s decision circumvents U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1% by allocating the munitions from existing defense stocks under the Foreign Assistance Act once the president deems that such a provision is in the U.S. national security interest.

The cluster munition supply is part of an $800 million security package that has brought U.S. military aid to Ukraine to more than $40 billion since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara, VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin, and VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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