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Latest developments:
The United States announced Friday that it would supply cluster munitions to Ukraine as NATO's leader said the military alliance would unite at a summit next week on how to bring Ukraine closer to joining.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Friday that NATO members meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week would reaffirm their goal for Ukraine to eventually become a member of the alliance. However, membership talks are not expected until after the war is over.
When asked when or how Ukraine might join the alliance, Stoltenberg said that the "most important thing now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails" in its fight against Russia.
In Washington, President Joe Biden defended the U.S. move to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, calling it a "difficult decision."
"It took me a while to be convinced to do it," Biden said in a CNN interview.
He said the cluster munitions would help Ukraine to "stop those [Russian] tanks from rolling."
The military aid is part of an $800 million security package that brings the total U.S. military aid to Ukraine to more than $40 billion since Russia's February 2022 invasion.
Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, echoed the president's remarks, saying the decision to provide cluster bombs was not an easy one for the U.S. or Ukraine. He said Ukraine has provided assurances it would use these munitions with the utmost care because it knows the risk they pose to Ukrainian citizens.
"We will continue to support Ukraine along the way. We base our security assistance decisions on Ukraine's needs on the ground," said Sullivan, noting that there also were consequences to civilians if Russian troops and tanks rolled over Ukrainian positions.
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. This clause allows Biden to provide aid once he deems that such a provision is the U.S. national security interest.
The move comes amid concerns that Kyiv's counteroffensive is going slower than anticipated against entrenched Russian troops and that Kyiv is diminishing Western stocks of conventional artillery. However, Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, told reporters it was too soon to draw any conclusions about Kyiv's battlefield gains. Russia is more successful at digging in "than perhaps was fully appreciated."
More than 100 nations have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions banning such weapons. The United States, Russia and Ukraine are not part of the convention. Russia and Ukraine reportedly have used such weapons against each other.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is against the use of cluster munitions, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said Friday. And Germany, a member of the Convention on Cluster Munitions and a U.S. ally, expressed its opposition to such a move.
Human Rights Watch has also urged the United States not to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, and it has asked Russia and Ukraine to "immediately stop" using cluster weapons.
Ukraine has asked for cluster munitions to be used against entrenched Russian troops.
"Undoubtedly, the transfer of additional volumes of shells to Ukraine is a very significant contribution to the acceleration of deoccupation procedures," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak said Friday.
Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, raised "serious concerns" about Washington's decision. Karasin said that Russia "of course will respond to this," according to Russia's RIA news agency.
NATO-Ukraine
Zelenskyy reiterated his call for long-range weapons against Russian forces that invaded his country.
"Without long-range weapons, it is difficult not only to carry out an offensive mission, but also, honestly, to conduct a defensive operation. It is very difficult. This means that you are defending your land and you cannot reach the appropriate distance to destroy your enemy, i.e., the enemy has a distant advantage," Zelenskyy said while visiting Prague.
Zelenskyy's Prague visit was part of his tour to NATO countries before the two-day NATO summit next week in Vilnius, Lithuania.
During Zelenskyy's stop in Slovakia, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova said the question regarding Ukraine's entrance into NATO was when, not if. Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Kyiv is unlikely to be able to join NATO while at war with Russia.
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In his CNN interview Friday, Biden said he did not think there was a consensus among NATO member states to welcome Ukraine into the military alliance now.
"I don't think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war," Biden said in an excerpt of the interview that aired Friday.
Responding to VOA on whether the U.S. president believed in a fast-track NATO membership for Ukraine, Sullivan said Friday that Biden "has been clear that we're going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes and provide them an exceptional quantity of arms and capabilities, both from ourselves and facilitating those from allies and partners, but that we are not seeking to start World War III."
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.