Washington [US], July 12: Ukraine on Thursday urged NATO allies to lift restrictions on its use of long-range weapons against targets in Russia, saying that would be "game-changer" in its war with Moscow, while China slammed NATO criticism of its support for Russia as biased and malicious.
NATO members issued a declaration in support of Ukraine at a summit in Washington on Wednesday, promising additional aid and pledging to back its "irreversible path" to NATO membership.
At a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg before a meeting with the 32 NATO states on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on allies to preserve their unified support of Ukraine and said new aid had to be delivered quickly.
U.S. President Joe Biden told Zelenskiy ahead of an earlier bilateral meeting: "We will stay with you, period."
Zelenskiy's cabinet chief Andryi Yermak told a public forum Russia had no restrictions on its use of weapons and it would be "a real game-changer" if Ukraine's allies could lift all limits on the use of those they supply to Ukraine.
NATO members have taken different approaches to how Ukraine can use weapons they donate. Some have made clear Kyiv can use them to strike targets deep inside Russia while the United States has taken a narrower approach, allowing its weapons to be used only just inside Russia's border against targets supporting Russian military operations in Ukraine.
The United States and its allies have used this week's summit to try to project unity in the face of what they see as a rising threat to Europe from Russia and China.
However, NATO member Hungary said ahead of a meeting of NATO members with partners from the so-called Indo-Pacific Four - Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - that it does not want NATO to become an "anti-China" bloc, and will not support it doing so.
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also told Hungarian state television that Ukraine's admission to the military alliance would weaken unity in the group.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban irked other NATO members with surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled "peace mission". He and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will meet on Thursday at the latter's Florida home, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Orban's meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular angered some fellow NATO allies, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Putin's claims to Ukrainian territory seized since Russia's 2022 invasion.
Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told a public forum he would not speculate on whether Orban's trip to Moscow was coordinated with Trump, Biden's rival in the November U.S. election, but said the Ukrainians had grave misgivings about any effort to negotiate a peace deal without them.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
