Ukraine Update…505 days into the Russian move on Ukraine….Biden/Zelensky/NATO go Home…..

Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.

• The NATO summit this week “put to rest any doubts” about Ukraine’s future membership in the defense alliance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly address. He previously described a lack of a concrete timeline for Ukraine’s future in NATO as “absurd.” In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that was aired Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he had “no doubt” that Ukraine would join NATO once the conflict with Russia is over.
• The Group of Seven pledged to provide Kyiv with security assistance and modern military equipment.Its member states — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — will prioritize supplying air defense, armored vehicles, and artillery and long-range weapons, their leaders said in a statement. They will also provide training, intelligence and “support to further develop Ukraine’s defense industrial base,” the statement said.
• At the NATO summit, Biden sought to bridge the gap between those who want Ukraine to join the military alliance quickly and those who harbor concerns that a hasty Ukrainian accession to NATO could complicate fragile global alliances and spark a broader conflict. After a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky, Biden said the conversation went “very well. We accomplished every goal we set out to accomplish.”
• NATO exempted Ukraine from the Membership Action Plan, one of two steps needed to join the alliance. The move shortens the process for Ukraine’s accession to NATO. The Membership Action Plan is a process in which candidate countries receive assessments and advice to take steps to meet NATO criteria on defense and economic and other matters. Finland was also exempted.

• The Wagner mercenary group has handed over thousands of tons of weapons, ammunition and military equipment to the Russian army, Moscow said. The move shows that Russia is working to break up the mercenaries’ influence, The Post reported. The Wagner Group — which led a brief but dramatic mutiny against the Kremlin — turned in tanks, missile systems and about 20,000 small arms, according to a video from the Russian Defense Ministry. The Post was unable to verify the video or confirm that the weapons featured were used by Wagner.
• Moscow would regard Ukraine’s Western allies supplying it with F-16 fighter jets as a “nuclear” threat because of their capacity to carry atomic weapons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday. “Russia cannot ignore the ability of these aircraft to carry nuclear weapons. No assurances will help here,” Lavrov told Russian outlet Lenta. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba expressed hope Thursday that Ukrainian pilots will be flying F-16s by the end of March.
• Ukrainian forces have received cluster munitions from the United States but have not used them yet, a general told CNN in an interview Thursday. “We just got them; we haven’t used them yet, but they can radically change [the battlefield],” Brig. Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Tavria Joint Forces Operation, told the news channel. His comments come one day after Zelensky defended the provision of the controversial weapons, telling reporters ahead of his bilateral meeting with Biden that criticism of the provision was unfounded.
• Russia launched a drone strike on Kyiv for the third day in a row, officials in the Ukrainian capital said early Thursday. At least two people were injured, they said. A body was also found by those extinguishing an apartment fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

• Turkey’s decision to greenlight Sweden’s NATO bid raised eyebrows in Moscow. Russian hard-liners, stung by a flurry of recent Turkish gestures of support for Ukraine, are demanding that Turkey be designated an “unfriendly” country. The pro-Western moves by Turkey, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warm welcome of Zelensky in Istanbul on Friday, led to speculation that Turkey was pivoting to restore warmer relations with Europe and the United States after several years of close cooperation with Moscow.
• Russia may be using armored vehicles as “improvised explosive devices,” according to Britain’s Defense Ministry. In June, it said, there were several reports of Russian forces using “antiquated armoured vehicles packed with several tonnes of explosives” on the battlefield. “The crew likely bail out of the vehicle after setting it on its course,” it said Thursday in a daily intelligence update. Incidents were reported around Marinka, near the city of Donetsk, and may be linked to Chechen units, which the ministry said were “pioneering the tactic.” Although such attacks cause “extremely large explosions,” they generally detonate before reaching their targets, limiting their capability, it added.
• Australia will send 30 more Bushmaster armored vehicles to Ukraine, Canberra said. The newly promised batch brings Australia’s provision of the armored vehicles to 120. Australia will also deploy a reconnaissance aircraft to Germany starting in October to “help protect a gateway of international humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine.” Up to 100 crew members and support personnel will travel, a Defense Ministry statement said.
• The International Olympic Committee confirmed that Russia and Belarus will not receive formal invitations to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. The formal invitations are due to be sent out July 26. In an updated question and answer session on its website, the IOC said that the National Olympic Committees of Russia and Belarus would not receive invites, but reiterated its policy of leaving decisions on Russian and Belarusian athletes to the discretion of each sport.

Zelensky’s ‘guilt-based’ diplomacy leaves its mark on NATO summit: On the first day of this week’s NATO summit, there was dismay and disgruntlement among Ukrainian representatives. On the second day, there was mollification from the West. By the end of the two-day meeting, Zelensky welcomed the West’s promises of more weapons and assurances that Ukraine would probably be admitted to NATO once the war ends.

There is a clear pattern in Zelensky’s behavior, Ishaan Tharoor writes.

Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Tharoor that Zelensky “has adopted a guilt-based approach to diplomacy.”

“‘You never write, you never call, you never send F-16s’ has long summarized [Zelensky’s] approach to getting what he wants from the West and the U.S.,” Shapiro said….

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