Russia-Ukraine war news: Biden in Britain to meet with King Charles, Rishi Sunak
Ukraine live briefing: Biden in Britain to meet with king, prime minister before NATO summit President Biden meets with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on July 10 at Downing Street. (Video: The Washington Post)
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President Biden is set to meet with King Charles III and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania and a visit to Finland. A focus of his three-nation trip will be to rally support for Ukraine, short of offering it imminent membership to the defense alliance.
In an interview with CNN, Biden said a NATO membership vote for Ukraine would be “premature” while the war with Russia is ongoing and called for a “rational path” for Ukraine to join the bloc. At the same time, Turkey and Hungary are blocking Sweden’s bid for NATO membership, underscoring the divisions that could erode the alliance’s deterrent power amid a dangerous standoff with Moscow.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
Disagreement among NATO members over whether to admit Ukraine during the war means it’s too soon for a membership vote, Biden said. To bring Ukraine into the alliance now, he said, would instantly draw NATO into the war with Russia. “I think we have to lay out a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO,” he told To bring Ukraine into the alliance now, he said, would instantly draw NATO into the war with Russia. “I think we have to lay out a rational path for Ukraine to be able to qualify to be able to get into NATO,” he told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired Sunday.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered relations between Russia and the West , the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, wrote in a “Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered any remaining illusions of peaceful cooperation,” he said. He also hailed NATO’s the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, wrote in a Foreign Affairs article that published Monday.“Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered any remaining illusions of peaceful cooperation,” he said. He also hailed NATO’s recent expansion to include Finland , saying: “This is a game changer for European security and will provide an uninterrupted shield from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”
Stoltenberg called on Western allies to make a “generational commitment to increase defense spending.” Military investment, he wrote, would allow allies to support Ukraine for the “long haul,” safeguard Europe’s future and signal to other authoritarian regimes that aggressive wars end in failure. “If Russia stops fighting, there will be peace. If Ukraine stops fighting, it will cease to exist as a nation,” he wrote.
Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed Turkey’s resistance to Sweden joining NATO in a phone call, Turkish state media in a phone call, Turkish state media reported . The cost of Turkey’s acquiescence, officials and analysts say, appears to include a tentative $20 billion deal for American F-16 fighter jets
Battleground updates
Four people were killed in a Russian attack on the southeastern city of Orikhiv, near the front line , officials in Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration said Monday morning. officials in Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration said Monday morning. In a Telegram post , officials said three women and one man, all in their 40s, died when a guided Russian bomb dropped on a residential neighborhood, injuring 11 others.
Russian attacks have killed more than 170 civilians in Kyiv, including seven children, since the start of the invasion , Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in , Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a televised interview on Sunday.
Some Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about the United States’ decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) said he had “real qualms” about the decision, and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) accused the White House of crossing a line by supplying Ukraine with the munitions, whose use and transfer are widely prohibited elsewhere in the world. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.) and former senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) also opposed the decision in a Washington Post opinion article on Friday.
Global impact
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter that he had “an important discussion” with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba , ahead of the NATO summit and that he was , ahead of the NATO summit and that he was looking forward to talks there on continued NATO support for Ukraine.
Wimbledon crowds loudly booed Belarusian tennis player Victoria Azarenka after she lost to Ukrainian underdog Elina Svitolina. after the match, in line with the policy of Ukrainian players in protest of the war. The tennis tournament welcomed back Russian and Belarusian players this year, after banning them in 2022. The boos appeared to focus on the pair not shaking hands after the match, in line with the policy of Ukrainian players in protest of the war. The tennis tournament welcomed back Russian and Belarusian players this year, after banning them in 2022.
Polish President Andrzej Duda joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk on Sunday to remember the victims of the 1943 Volhynia massacre, in which tens of thousands of Poles were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists. Poland is one of Ukraine’s closest allies in the war against Russia, which has given Warsaw and Kyiv the opportunity to try to come to terms with their shared past, but the World War II-era killings have remained a strain on relations.
Analysis from our correspondents
A fateful summit 15 years ago hangs over the NATO meeting in Vilnius: As NATO leaders convene this week in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, Ukrainian officials are demanding that their Western counterparts remember the legacy of the summit in Bucharest, Ishaan Tharoor writes. During the 2008 NATO meeting in the Romanian capital, former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine were offered little more than a vague commitment of entering the alliance at some point, with no established plan regarding how or when that could be achieved.
The halfhearted gesture reflected division within the West at the time. On one side, the administration of President George W. Bush, deeply unpopular abroad after the ruinous war in Iraq and eking out its final year in office, sought to offer the two countries a formal NATO “Membership Action Plan.” On the other, a clutch of Western European governments, led by Germany, believed that neither Georgia nor Ukraine were politically ready to enter the alliance and looked askance at initiatives that may “poke the bear” of the Kremlin.
Source: The Washington Post
