Ukraine, US begin discussions on security guarantees: Official

Ukraine on Thursday (August 3) began talks with the US on security guarantees for the country, said the chief of staff of President Volodymyr Zelesnky. This is a follow-up to pledges by G7 countries at last month's NATO summit.

Ukraine was told that the Group of Seven (G7) would draw up and honour security guarantees and help bolster its military in light of Russia's 17-month-old invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine views these talks as an interim phase before its accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). During the recently concluded summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO offered support to Ukraine but leaders of the alliance ruled out membership till the war with Russia is resolved.

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Presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the agreement reached in Vilnius was "the basis for working out corresponding bilateral agreements".

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"It is symbolic that the United States - our biggest strategic partner - became the first country with which Ukraine has started this process," Yermak wrote. "Through this process we will create a successful model for other partners."

Members of the G7 agreed for each nation to negotiate agreements.

Yermak restated Ukraine's position that guarantees "will strengthen Ukraine along the path to future membership of the Euro-Atlantic community, including NATO and the European Union".

He didn't elaborate where the talks were taking place or who was taking part. However, photo accompanying his post showed him seated at a table at what appeared to be the Ukrainian president's office in the capital Kyiv.

Stop using Black Sea as ''blackmail"

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged United Nations (UN) members to tell Russia to stop using Black Sea as 'blackmail'. Russia has already quit the grain deal with Ukraine that allowed Ukrainian ships carrying grain to travel safely through the Black Sea.

Ukraine is a major exporter of grains and disruption of grain exports last year due to Russian invasion had raised the spectre of a global food crisis.

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"Every member of the United Nations should tell Moscow, 'Enough,'" said Blinken as he chaired a UN Security Council meeting on famine and food insecurity caused by conflict.

"Enough using the Black Sea as blackmail; enough treating the world's most vulnerable people as leverage; enough of this unjustified unconscionable war," he told the 15-member body.

(With inputs from agencies)

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