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A summary of today's developments
US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said president Joe Biden and his advisers had made a “unanimous decision” to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.He added Kyiv had provided assurances on how it would use the munitons, and that Russia has been using them extensively since the beginning of the war.
UN secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his support for the cluster munition prohibition. His deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said he supported the international prohibition and “naturally” does not want cluster munitions to be used on the battlefield.
Cluster munitions would be ‘psycho-emotional’ weapon against Russia, a senior Ukrainian official said amid reports that the US would take the controversial decision to supply the weapons, which are subject to a global prohibition that some countries do not adhere to.
Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern, a Democrat, also declared his opposition to the transfer of US cluster munitions to Ukraine. He described them as “indiscriminate” weapons which continue to kill civilians even after cessations of hostilities since they often do not explode but lay primed to do so.
Nato leaders will publicly recommit to Ukraine becoming a member of the military alliance and unite on how to bring Kyiv closer to this goal when they meet in Vilnius on Tuesday, according to the organisation’s secretary general.
Jen Stoltenberg also said that “Nato does not have a position” on cluster munitions as some allies have signed up to prohibit their use and some haven’t. “This will be for governments to decide, not for Nato to decide.”
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, criticised Nato over a lack of “unity” which he says explains the failure to provide a guarantee that his war-torn country would accede to the alliance.
An anonymous Pentagon official told the New York Times that the Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has mostly been in Russia since the mutiny, but that it remains unclear whether he had visited Belarus, since he allegedly uses body doubles. A raid on his mansion also found a wardrobe full of wigs and photos of him in various disguises.
More than 9,000 Ukrainian civilians, including in excess of 500 children, are confirmed to have died since the beginning of hostilities against Ukraine, 499 days ago, according to the latest United Nations data. However, the true figures are likely much higher.
A report by the Kyiv School of Economics and B4Ukraine, a coalition of NGOs which lobbies international businesses to leave Russia, said that 56% of foreign companies were still operating in the country last year despite the exodus of a significant minority. However, Russia’s earnings from oil and gas sales have fallen by half.
