Volodymyr Zelenskiy discusses peace plan, Nato and grain deal with Erdoğan in Turkey – as it happened

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• 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.

President Zelenskiy was greeted upon his arrival in Turkey earlier this evening by Haluk Bayraktar, the CEO of Baykar Technologies, the company which produces Ankara’s lethal drones.

Ukraine has been using Baykar Technologies’ TB2 drone since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine spurring something of a legend among Ukrainian soldiers who released a folk song as a tribute to it.

Written in Turkish the tweet reads:

Mr. President Zelensky, welcome to the friendly country Turkey.

I wholeheartedly support your struggle for a just peace and a lasting solution for Ukraine, which is an example to the world.

In a sign of budding ties between Baykar Technologies and Ukraine, the company announced that it would begin the construction of a drone manufacturing plant in Ukraine last October. Ukrainian engines also play a key role supplies chains for Baykar Technologies, providing engines for the high-altitude heavy combat Akıncı drone and the Kizilelma unmanned fighter jet.

Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russian forces is going more slowly than expected, a senior Pentagon official acknowledged.

“It’s too early to judge how the counter-offensive is going one way or the other because we’re at the beginning of the middle,” Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters.

“They are still probing Russian lines (and) Russian areas for weak spots,” Kahl said.

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan said president Joe Biden has approved the shipment of cluster munitions to Ukraine following a unanimous recommendation from his national security team.

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The US agreeing to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions is part of an aid package worth a reported $800m.

Also included in the package are Bradley and Stryker armoured vehicles, and ammunition that includes rounds for howitzers and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

Colin H Kahl, under secretary of defence for policy, said: “We will be able to provide Ukraine with extra artillery immediately.

“Russia has been using cluster munitions since the start of the war.

“The munitions we will provide Ukraine will have a dud rate of below 2.35% [meaning that fewer of the smaller bomblets should fail to explode].

“We are working with Ukraine to reduce the risks associated with these weapons.”

If Russia does not agree to extend a deal allowing the safe export of grain and fertiliser from Ukrainian ports, it is unlikely western states will continue cooperating with UN officials helping Moscow with its exports, the UN aid chief said.

Russia has threatened to quit the deal, which expires on 17 July, because several demands to dispatch its own grain and fertiliser have not been met.

The last three ships traveling under the deal are loading cargoes at the Ukrainian port of Odesa and are likely to depart on Monday.

“The world has seen the value of the Black Sea Initiative … this isn’t something you chuck away,” the UN’s Martin Griffiths told reporters.

The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said president Joe Biden and his advisers had made a “unanimous decision” to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

He added that Kyiv had provided assurances on how it would use the munitons, and that Russia had been using them extensively since the beginning of the war.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s press conference with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which was due to start at 7pm UK time, has been delayed.