Support for Ukraine set to be high on agenda at meeting between US and British leaders; Ukraine’s deputy defence minister says heavy fighting ongoing in much fought-over city
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Joe Biden is set to hold talks with Rishi Sunak on Monday, the eve of a two-day Nato summit in Vilnius, with Ukraine set to dominate discussions both in London and in the Lithuanian capital.
The US and the UK are among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, but they differ on Ukraine’s wish to join the military alliance, with Washington much more reluctant than London due to concerns it may provoke Russia.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he was hoping for “the best possible result” from the summit, after talks with his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda. Zelenskiy has said he does not expect Ukraine to actually join Nato until after the war but that he hopes the summit will give a “clear signal” on the intention to bring Ukraine into the alliance.
The US president spoke to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by phone on Sunday and “conveyed his desire to welcome Sweden into Nato as soon as possible”, the White House said. Washington has been increasing pressure on Ankara to drop its opposition to Sweden’s all-but-cleared Nato membership bid ahead of the Vilnius summit.
Erdogan’s office said separately that the Turkish leader had reaffirmed to Biden his longstanding position that Sweden still needed to crack down harder on suspected Kurdish militants to win Turkey’s support. It said the two presidents would meet on the sidelines of the summit.
The Nato meeting comes as members of Biden’s own Democratic party, rights groups and the UN raised questions about the US decision to send cluster bombs, which have been banned by more than 100 countries, to Ukraine. US senator Tim Kaine told Fox News he had “some real qualms” about the move because it “could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well”.
Germany’s president has said the country should not “block” the US from sending cluster bombs to Ukraine, while maintaining its opposition to the use of the weapon. “Germany’s position against the use of cluster munitions is as justified as ever. But we cannot, in the current situation, block the United States,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday.
Russian air defence systems shot down four missiles on Sunday, Russian officials said, one over the annexed Crimean peninsula and three over Russia’s Rostov and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine. Several buildings were damaged in Rostov and Bryansk but no casualties were reported. No casualties or damage were reported in Crimea.
South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said next month’s Brics summit, which Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend, will be held in-person despite an arrest warrant on the Russian leader. “The Brics summit is going ahead and we are finalising our discussions on the format,” Ramaphosa told South African journalists on Sunday on the sidelines of a conference by the ruling ANC, adding it would be a “physical” meeting.
