Volodymyr Zelenskyj will be invited to the NATO summit scheduled for July in Washington, where the topic of Ukraine will be central, said US Permanent Representative to the Alliance Julianne Smith.
“There will be an opportunity to welcome Zelensky to Washington, to stand with thirty-two other leaders, and make sure that Moscow understands one thing: NATO allies will continue to support Kiev,” she said Monday at an event at the Atlantic Council. Council in Washington. Smith stressed that NATO will remain with Kiev “for as long as necessary” and that the Ukraine issue will become a key topic of discussion at the next summit.
Not only that, Ukraine will present itself at the meeting with NATO with an increase in the production of thousands of long-range drones in 2024, Wall Street Journal source, citing Ukrainian officials. According to the WSJ, the production of long-range Ukrainian drones allows Kiev to circumvent political restrictions on the use of weapons supplied by Western allies in attacks on Russian territory. At the same time, Kiev still relies largely on Chinese components for its assembly.
While the issue of human resources that is truly lacking in the ranks of the Ukrainian army remains to be resolved. Ukraine will not forcibly repatriate Ukrainians from abroad, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina said in an interview with DW. Estonia has also expressed itself in this sense: “Tallin will not deport Ukrainian citizens, including those subject to military service,” said Anneli Viks, advisor to the Department for Citizenship and Migration Policies of the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Those who are pushing for the return of men of military age to Ukrainian soil are Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba: “The return to Ukraine of those responsible for military service is a question of justice. I think this is fair [towards] Ukrainian men who are in Ukraine. I think it would be fair to them if men from abroad returned to Ukraine,” he said during a joint press conference in Kiev with Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Brazhe.
The United States is pushing for Kiev to resolve the problems with the adoption of the mobilization law, writes the New York Times. During his recent visit to Kiev, US Deputy Secretary of State James O’Brien emphasized the importance of not only artillery, but also state mobilization efforts to stabilize the situation at the front. “Ukraine needs to make sure it has the people it needs to fight,” the deputy secretary of state said at a news conference.
The Washington Post has criticized Volodymyr Zelenskyj, according to the newspaper the Ukrainian president underestimated the death toll among the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces when he announced the figure of 31 thousand deaths in February. The WP claims he did this to “not scare mobilized Ukrainians amid problems with army recruitment,” quoting an anonymous Ukrainian MP.
“The number of military losses, which Ukraine has long refused to reveal, probably should have been underestimated so as not to interfere with the already problematic mobilization,” the newspaper writes. The newspaper emphasizes that, due to the serious shortage of soldiers in the ranks of the Ukrainian armed forces and the superiority of the Russian Federation in firepower, Kiev, in all likelihood, will not be able to count on the offensive this year.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has initiated proceedings against the Rada, in which the parliament is accused of inaction for failure to call presidential elections, writes the Strana publication.
From Moscow, Dmitrj Peskov said in the usual morning press conference that: “On the Ukrainian side, panic is growing at the front, it is important to maintain this dynamic,” he said.
Furthermore, the Kremlin believes that the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj will soon be called into question, including in Ukraine. “It seems to me that Zelensky’s fate is clearly predetermined, and very soon the moment will come when many, including in Ukraine, will question his legitimacy. In any case, even from a legal point of view, this will have to be done. And somehow he will have to make excuses,” commented the Russian President’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov in an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin.
Graziella Giangiulio
