by US to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs in a new military aid package expected to be announced by the Pentagon today, the same day as Zelensky meets the President of Turkey for the first time since the start of the war. Russia is once again threatening to block the grain deal and Putin and Lukashenko’s contradictory words in CIS commentator Germano Almeida’s analysis.
Ukraine already has cluster bombs and used them in this war. “The novelty is that they are donated by the United States, which will significantly increase Ukraine’s capacity.”
“It’s not an easy decision [para os EUA] but it is an example of how Ukraine really needs another kind of dimension to compensate for the still very great superiority of Russia in means”.
Cluster bombs – cluster bombs – are banned in more than 120 countries, including several NATO allies, such as the UK, France, Germany, which sign the International Bomb Ban Treaty fragmentation, a treaty that is not signed by the United States United States, Russia and Ukraine.
“Cluster bombs increase Ukraine’s munitions capacity, but they present several dangers, namely that they leave a trail over a very large area and therefore used in close proximity to civilian populations, as is unfortunately the case with the war in Ukraine which has consequences”.
For its part, Russia is receiving more drones from Iran, essential for Russian attacks.
“The supply of Shahed drones is essential [para a Rússia]. The Russian wave of bombings on Ukrainian cities has started in recent months. Part of it is Russian cruise missiles, as it was yesterday [do ataque] in Lviv who were [mísseis] Kalibr, but a good part, 40 and 50%, of what is used are Shahed drones”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul today. This is Zelensky’s first visit to Turkey since the start of the war with Russia. The export of Ukrainian cereals to the Black Sea should be the central theme of the meeting between the two leaders.
“It is very important that Zelensky is in Turkey for the first time since the start of the war. Turkey has tried to play a mediating role here, but in some respects it remains a bit closer to Russia than to Ukraine, but it is a NATO country and therefore in this sense , she is part of the big bloc that supports Ukraine, Erdogan cleverly used that.
The grain agreement was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations and allows ships loaded with grain to leave Ukrainian ports. However, this understanding ends July 17. Russia has said it sees no reason to extend it, but Zelensky hopes Erdogan can help break the deadlock with Moscow.
“It seems to me that the possibility of Turkey, again – and this is already the third or fourth time that the grain agreement will be renewed and Russia is threatening not to – at the last unblocking of the decision will also be important.
Prigozhin reportedly returned to Russia
The leader of the group, Wagner Prigozhin, will be in Saint Petersburg, according to the President of Belarus.
“It’s a theater of deception that begins on June 24. This shows that the word of Putin, Lukashenko, Prigozhin, is worth very little, because they say one thing, they supposedly make a certain agreement and then it is not to fulfill it”.
For Germano Almeida, “Putin shows that he has retained enough strength not to keep the promise revealed to the world that day as a solution to give Prigozhin the possibility of going to Belarus and which, supposedly, does not is not confirmed”.
The Belarusian president also contradicted himself when he said that Prigozhin and mercenaries are welcome in Belarus.
“Putin even incriminated himself because he said that the Russian state funded the Wagner group with 2 billion a year, and Russian law prohibits the state from directly funding mercenary groups. We are here in a theater of deception”.
