Kyiv wants to convene a second meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement in Ukraine before the US elections in November, this time with Russia attending, according to people familiar with the matter.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signalled Ukraine could strike military targets inside Russia with Britain’s Storm Shadow missiles, confirming he would continue the previous UK government’s policy on the use of its long-range weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Portugal plans to increase the military aid it’s providing to Ukraine this year to €221-million, said Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
Ukraine seeks new summit with Russia ahead of US elections
Kyiv wants to convene a second meeting to achieve a fair peace settlement in Ukraine before the US elections in November, this time with Russia attending, according to people familiar with the matter.
The plan follows the first summit that took place in Switzerland last month and included representatives from more than 90 countries. Russia was not invited, several states sent lower-level delegations and Kyiv’s bid to win over key nations from the Global South faltered as some declined to sign on to a final statement.
Many of those countries — as well as China which didn’t join the Swiss meeting — have long argued that Moscow should be part of the talks. Beijing has put forward its own proposals with Brazil to bring about an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The push to organise the meeting before the US elections points to a sense of urgency on the part of Ukraine as it faces the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has boasted that he’ll end the war by the time he’s inaugurated in January and has argued against the US’s continued military support for Kyiv.
Ukraine has been keen to use the summit process as a pathway to reaching a broad agreement on a set of key principles that would form the basis of a just peace before engaging with Russia. The Swiss summit focused on nuclear safety, food security and returning abducted children, and it is around those issues that initial contact with Russian officials could be established.
A Ukrainian official confirmed the plan to hold a second summit before the US elections. Several officials from some Western allied nations said any meeting would need to be carefully organised with a clear purpose and expectations managed.
Some US officials, however, are unconvinced a summit with Russia and Ukraine would happen. They declined to be named because the talks are private.
Speaking at the Reagan Institute in Washington on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the US to help organise the second summit to make it “more powerful and truly decisive”.
Starmer says Ukraine can use UK missiles to strike in Russia
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signalled Ukraine could strike military targets inside Russia with Britain’s Storm Shadow missiles, confirming he would continue the previous UK government’s policy on the use of its long-range weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Starmer agreed it was up to Ukraine how it used the Storm Shadow missiles donated by the UK. He was speaking to journalists while travelling to the Nato summit in Washington late Tuesday.
The missiles must “obviously be used in accordance with international humanitarian law as you would expect,” the premier added, stating his position that Storm Shadows were to be used “for defensive purposes”.
“But it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes,” he said. Storm Shadows are precision-guided cruise missiles with a firing range in excess of 250km.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Starmer at a meeting on Wednesday he had seen his comments on Storm Shadow missiles, thanking him for his “permission” to use them and describing them as “very strong and high quality”. Starmer told Zelensky that even though there had been a change of government in Britain, there had been “no change in position” on its support for Ukraine.
Ukraine has said it needs to strike military targets inside Russia to defend itself and repel Russian attacks, and it’s one of the main issues that will be discussed at the Nato summit.
Some European countries such as the UK have expressed support for Ukraine’s position, but the US government has so far resisted lifting all restrictions on the use of its weapons by Kyiv. The Biden administration says it has not enabled Ukrainian strikes deep within Russia, considering that a red line to prevent escalation with Moscow.
The remarks were the first time Starmer had committed his new administration to the policy following his UK election victory last week.
They echoed the words used by predecessor Rishi Sunak’s government, which never explicitly said Ukraine could use Storm Shadows to strike inside Russia, but indicated that was the case by saying it was up to Kyiv how to deploy them. At the time, the Kremlin called that a “very dangerous statement”.
“My message to President Putin is this: this Nato summit should be seen as a clear and united resolve by Nato allies and others that are there at the same time to stand with Ukraine and stand up to Russian aggression,” said Starmer.
Portugal will increase military aid to Ukraine to €221m
Portugal plans to increase the amount of military aid it’s providing to Ukraine this year to €221-million, said Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
The government will add €95-million to the €126-million of military aid that was already planned for this year, Montenegro told reporters in Washington, where he was attending a Nato summit.
Montenegro reaffirmed a commitment for defence spending in the country’s budget to reach the equivalent of 2% of gross domestic product in 2029.
Nato set to call out China over support for Russia’s war machine
Nato leaders were set to issue the alliance’s strongest language yet in calling out China’s military support for Russia, people familiar with the matter said, amid signs that Beijing was developing an attack drone for the conflict with Ukraine.
Nato would describe China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to the latest draft of a communique set to be released at the end of a three-day alliance summit and seen by Bloomberg News. The draft details China’s supply of dual-use materials such as weapons components, equipment and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defence sector.
The US briefed Nato allies on China’s support in the run-up to the summit as part of efforts to cement shared concern over the burgeoning defence partnership, the people said. The draft document says that China poses “systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security”, including through cyber activities and disinformation as well as its development of counter-space capabilities.
US officials have said China was holding off directly providing weapons and artillery, something that would signal an unprecedented escalation and almost certainly trigger more forceful action — such as sanctions — against the world’s second-biggest economy.
Still, European capitals were alarmed by reports this month that Chinese and Russian companies were developing an attack drone similar to an Iranian model deployed in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported earlier.
The push from Nato shows a growing consensus between the US and its partners that Beijing represents a threat not just in Asia, but also to European security through its support for Russia. In recent years, European capitals from Berlin to London, Prague and Vilnius have hardened their stance on China.
Nato countries seek to bolster Ukraine’s future military force
Nearly two dozen Nato countries will pledge this week to speed up efforts to bolster Ukraine’s military and defence capabilities, even as the prospect of another Donald Trump presidency looms large over the alliance’s summit in Washington.
The nations, which include the US, UK, France and Germany, will commit to meet within the next six months to agree on a roadmap to develop Ukraine’s future forces and continue to strengthen them into the 2030s, according to a draft statement seen by Bloomberg.
The overall aim of the so-called Ukraine Compact is to support Kyiv’s immediate defence and security needs as well as ensure it can deter future acts of aggression by Russia once the current war ends. The arrangement brings together allies that have in recent months and weeks signed bilateral security agreements with Kyiv, including Italy, Canada, Spain and the three Baltic nations.
“Nato is good for Europe, but it’s also good for the United States,” Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday. “It makes the United States stronger and safer, because in Nato the US has something no other major power has — that is more than 30 friends and allies.”
The Nato members sought to display a show of unity over the three-day summit meeting as Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped up attacks on Ukraine. The allies also committed this week to provide more air defence systems, although many of the commitments repeated past pledges.
Stoltenberg tried to downplay fears of what a possible new Trump presidency would mean for the alliance. The presumptive Republican nominee previously threatened to pull the US out of Nato and more recently said he’d let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to alliance members that don’t meet their defence spending obligations.
“I expect that, regardless of the outcome of the US elections, the US will remain a strong and staunch Nato ally,” Stoltenberg said in Washington on Wednesday.
Some allies worry about what happens to commitments agreed at this summit should Trump win the election in November and return to the White House. The former president has said he will seek a quick deal between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, but has so far provided little detail of how he intends to do that nor has he said anything about future support for Kyiv.
Romania seeks new Patriot system from US after Ukraine donation
Romania said it was negotiating with the US and other Nato partners to receive an additional Patriot system after donating one of two operational batteries to neighbouring Ukraine.
The Black Sea nation would also sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine on the sidelines of the Nato Summit in Washington on Thursday, President Klaus Iohannis told reporters on Wednesday. He reiterated Romania’s decision to donate a Patriot air defence battery to Ukraine and said the support would continue.
“We understand that an additional Patriot system cannot be delivered very quickly, but we are also in talks about other types of air defence systems,” Iohannis said. “I hope we’ll see some progress after this summit.”
Russians face rising food, fuel costs ahead of July rate meeting
Price growth in Russia accelerated for the sixth consecutive month, underscoring the headwinds the central bank has faced in curtailing inflation and all but guaranteeing policymakers will raise the key rate at their July meeting.
Annual inflation in June increased to 8.59% from 8.30% in the previous month, according to Federal Statistics Service data published late on Wednesday. While in monthly terms, price growth slowed to 0.64% from 0.74% in May, it still remained elevated, driven by the cost for both food and services.
Staples like vegetables have become 19% more expensive compared with the previous year, with prices climbing by 2% in June from just the previous month. Prices for potatoes increased by almost 34% since only a month earlier.
Inflation has continued to accelerate in early July due to a planned increase in utility tariffs and the cost of public transportation, as well as a seasonal spike in prices for plane tickets and hotels. DM