Ukraine live briefing: NATO chief visits Kyiv, says Ukraine’s ‘rightful place’ is in alliance

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

Key developments

• Denmark and the Netherlands are set to donate 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, the Danish Foreign Ministry confirmed. Germany, which developed the Leopard, announced in January that it would deliver tanks to Ukraine and authorized other countries to export its Leopards to Kyiv. Ukraine favors the Leopard 2 tanks because they are fast and easy to use, arm and refuel.
• “Let me be clear: Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family,” Stoltenberg said at the news conference. “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help you make this possible.” The secretary general’s visit comes as NATO is expanding, having just added Finland as its 31st member. Sweden, another prospective member, has had its accession process held up by objections from alliance members Hungary and Turkey.
• Zelensky pushed for a road map for NATO membership. “The time has come for the [alliance’s] leaders to define the prospects of Ukraine’s acquisition of NATO membership, to define the algorithm of Ukraine’s movement towards this goal, and to define security guarantees for our state for the period of such movement — that is, for the period before NATO membership,” the Ukrainian leader said.
• Ukraine continues to hold Bakhmut’s western edge, despite suggestions from Washington months ago that Kyiv cut its losses and let the city go, according to a leaked classified U.S. assessment obtained by The Post. The document, marked “top secret,” cautioned that “steady” Russian advances since November “had jeopardized Ukraine’s ability to hold the city,” and Ukrainian forces would probably be “at risk of encirclement, unless they withdraw within the next month.” Ukraine has since clung onto western Bakhmut, framing its defense as an imperative far greater than the city’s strategic military value — one that denies Russia a victory and boosts Ukrainian morale.
• The mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko said the capital has ended its land lease agreement with Russia’s embassy. On Telegram on Thursday, he said the city council appealed to federal officials to return the property to the Ukrainian state.

Battleground updates

• Russia may have formed a new military grouping to defend the southern Ukrainian territory it has captured in the war, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. A Tuesday statement from the Kremlin referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit with the “Dnipr Group of Forces” — using the Russian spelling of the Dnieper River in Ukraine. This new reference suggests the existence of “a large, task-organised operational formation” whose role is “likely to defend the southern sector of the occupied zone, and especially the south-western flank which is currently marked by the Dnipro river,” the ministry said.
• Ukraine has already begun conducting some counteroffensive actions, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said during a local telethon. But Ukrainian forces will not preemptively announce when the counteroffensive has started because of the classified nature of such military action, she added. Malyar said the counteroffensive would be aimed at liberating all of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War think tank.
• Patriot missile systems sent to Ukraine by Western allies have arrived, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a tweet, thanking the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. “Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure,” Reznikov wrote.

Global impact

• Colombian President Gustavo Petro said that Colombian-owned Russian weapons “are not going to war” when asked at the White House on Thursday about his rejection of a U.S. proposal to send Russian-made weapons to Ukraine. He told reporters that his position on those weapons was that they would be sent to neither Russia nor Ukraine.
• The European Union proposed sending financial support to local farmers in five countries bordering Ukraine after several banned grain imports from the country. The European Commission said it met with representatives from Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and Romania — which, amid the Russian invasion, have become transit routes for Ukrainian grain, prompting an influx of the product and angering local farmers.
• President Biden spoke by phone Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, and in an earlier call, with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. In both calls, the leaders reiterated mutual support for Ukraine, according to a White House readout.
• Switzerland imposed sanctions on the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary army headed by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, for its “active participation in Russia’s war,” the Swiss government said in a statement Thursday.
• Ship inspections under the Black Sea Grain Initiative continued Thursday following successful negotiations the day before to resume them, the United Nations said. Under the agreement, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations inspect all ships traveling to and from Ukrainian ports. The deal has allowed wheat, corn, sunflower oil and more to be exported globally during wartime. But its future is in question: Parties to the deal agreed on Saturday to extend it, but it’s unclear for how long. Russian officials have said that further extensions would be contingent on Western countries lifting some sanctions against Moscow.
• The South Korean presidential office said any decision on providing lethal aid to Ukraine will “depend on Russia.” It added that Moscow, which has said such a move would make Seoul a party to the conflict, was “commenting on something that isn’t happening,” reported the Yonhap news agency. In a Reuters interview, President Yoon Suk Yeol appeared to open the door to shifting South Korea’s policy of providing only nonlethal aid to Ukraine.
• NASA denied that a flash of light seen in the sky above Kyiv on Wednesday night was caused by one of its satellites. Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, initially said the flash — which sparked fear among the city’s residents of a Russian attack — might have been caused by the reentry into the atmosphere of a satellite from the U.S. space agency. But NASA told news outlets that the satellite in question, which was expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere that day, was still in orbit at the time. Popko later said the flash wasn’t caused by a NASA satellite or by a missile attack.

From our correspondents

An intellectual battle rages: Is the U.S. in a proxy war with Russia? Days before the anniversary of his Ukraine invasion, Putin accused the West — with its ever-increasing supply of sophisticated weapons — of using Ukraine as a “testing range” for its plans to destroy Russia. The goal was “to spark a war in Europe, and to eliminate competitors by using a proxy force,” he said in a presidential address.

The remarks have resonated, particularly in the Global South, where some countries see the United States engaged in what they consider serial interventions around the world and have declined to take sides. While White House officials adamantly reject the label, whether Ukraine has become a “proxy” war between great powers has become an intellectual and political battlefield itself, Karen DeYoung writes.

Karen DeYoung, William Neff and Daniel Wolfe contributed to this report.