Latest developments:
- Ukraine’s military intelligence reported Saturday that Russia continues to deliver mines and explosives around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The IAEA’s on-site experts say they have not yet found any explosives during their inspections of the nuclear plant but note they have not been granted access to inspect the rooftops.
- Turkey favors Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. “Without a doubt, Ukraine deserves to be in NATO,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Istanbul.
- Wagner mercenary fighters are preparing to move to Belarus under the agreement that averted their mutiny against Russia's military leadership, a senior commander of the group was quoted as saying. The exact whereabouts of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenaries is unclear.
- Poland began moving over 1,000 troops to the east of the country Saturday, the defense minister said, amid rising concern in the NATO-member that Wagner Group mercenaries were moving to Belarus and that their presence could lead to increased tensions on its border.
The British Defense Ministry said Sunday that Russian state media outlets were caught off guard by last month’s Wagner Group mutiny. “Outlets were almost certainly initially surprised by the mutiny and were not prepared,” the ministry said in its daily intelligence report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
After the insurrection died down, the British ministry said, Russian state outlets created stories to counter other reports that Russian security forces played a “passive” role in dealing with the Wagner mercenaries. The state media also, according to the report, created stories praising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s triumph in putting down the mutiny without any bloodshed and “sought to unite the country behind the president,” who since the insurrection “has undertaken unusually prominent public engagements, almost certainly aiming to project strength.”
At least eight civilians were killed and 13 wounded by Russian artillery Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Lyman, a key railway junction in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces tried to advance in the Lyman sector but were repelled, the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported. It said at least 10 towns and villages were struck by the shelling, which started fires that burned a house, printing shop and three cars in the area.
The attacks came as Ukraine marked the 500th day of the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy observed the somber anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the liberated Snake Island in the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian president thanked soldiers during a morning address Saturday.
“I thank you! Thank you to everyone who fights for Ukraine. … We will definitely win,” he said.
In a statement marking the 500 days of war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed Ukraine’s resilience.
“The United States remains committed to helping Ukraine defend itself and to rebuild its future. Each day, the people of Ukraine demonstrate their resilience and unity in defending against Moscow’s brutal, relentless assaults. In the face of enormous adversity, the people of Ukraine inspire the world, reminding us of the importance of upholding the tenets of the U.N. Charter,” the top U.S. diplomat said.
Earlier Saturday, returning from his visit to Turkey, Zelenskyy brought home five former commanders of Ukraine’s garrison in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol.
After a three-month siege, the city was seized by Russian forces and the five fighters were sent to Turkey, where they were to remain until the end of the war as part of a prisoner swap brokered by Turkey between Russia and Ukraine.
Russian denounced their release. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Turkey had violated the prisoner exchange terms and had failed to inform Moscow.
Peskov said the release was a result of pressure from Turkey's NATO allies ahead of next week's summit, where Ukraine hopes to receive a positive signal about its future membership in the military alliance.
US allies on cluster bombs
U.S. allies and Russia reacted Saturday to the U.S. decision to supply Ukraine with controversial cluster munitions that are banned by more than 100 countries, though not the U.S., Russia and Ukraine.
Canada, Britain, Spain, Germany and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres all expressed opposition to the U.S. decision.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed the U.S. announcement to deliver cluster bombs to Kyiv and promised the munitions would be used only in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories and not in Russia.
Reznikov said on Twitter that the new weapons “will significantly help us to de-occupy our territories while saving the lives of the Ukrainian soldiers.”
Reznikov said that cluster munitions will be used “only in the fields where there is a concentration of Russian military.” He emphasized that such munitions will not be used in urban areas to avoid the risks for the civilian populations.
“These are our people; they are Ukrainians, and we have a duty to protect,” he wrote.
Cluster munitions typically release large numbers of smaller bombs that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area. Those that fail to explode upon contact with the ground then pose a danger for decades.
Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., said Friday in an interview with VOA’s Ukraine Service that the cluster bombs from the U.S. are “of a much better quality and much safer than the typical cluster munitions that people are talking about.” She said the cluster munitions “will help us to faster liberate our territories.”
Moscow described the U.S. decision as another egregious example of Washington's anti-Russian course.
President Joe Biden defended the U.S. move Friday, calling it a “difficult decision.”
“It took me a while to be convinced to do it,” Biden said in a CNN interview, underscoring the cluster munitions would help Ukraine to “stop those [Russian] tanks from rolling."
Biden’s decision circumvents U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1% by allocating the munitions from existing defense stocks under the Foreign Assistance Act once the president deems that such a provision is in the U.S. national security interest.
The cluster munition supply is part of an $800 million security package that brings the total U.S. military aid to Ukraine to more than $40 billion since Russia's February 2022 invasion.
VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara, VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin, and VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
