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The United States will provide Ukraine with cluster-style artillery rounds for use on their own territory to repel Russian invading forces, the White House has said. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Friday that Kyiv has “provided written assurances” that it would use the controversial weapons “in a very careful way that is aimed at minimising any risk to civilians”. He said the Defence Department would provide further details on the next arms package that will be sent to Ukraine, but he pointed out that Kyiv’s forces are “firing thousands of rounds a day to defend against Russian efforts to advance and also to support its own efforts to retake its sovereign territory”. The national security adviser suggested the decision to provide Ukraine with cluster weapons already in US stocks was necessary to keep up a steady flow of arms for Kyiv’s defence. “We have provided Ukraine with a historic amount of unitary artillery rounds and we are ramping up domestic production of these rounds. We’ve already seen substantial increases in production, but this process will continue to take time, and it will be critical to provide Ukraine with a bridge of supplies. While our domestic production is ramped up,” he said. “We will not leave Ukraine defenceless at any point in this conflict period”. Mr Sullivan noted that Russia has been using their own version of cluster munitions, which are antipersonnel weapons that make use of small “bomblets” to maximise their effectiveness against massed troops, and pointed out that the Russian weapons have a high rate of failure which leaves the battlefield littered with unexploded ordinance. He added that the US-made shells that will be provisioned to Kyiv’s defence forces have a much lower failure rate, and said Ukraine’s government has committed to post-war de-mining that would prevent civilians from being harmed by unexploded submunitions, which in past conflict zones have lingered for years. While a 2008 treaty, the Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions, has been signed by more than 100 nations which have agreed to ban the use of such weapons, neither the US, Russia or Ukraine are signatories to the treaty. He also contrasted Russia’s use of the weapons on Ukraine’s territory with Ukraine’s desire to use them to defend their own land. “When we look at what Ukraine would be doing with these weapons, as opposed to what Russia is doing with these weapons, we see a substantial difference. It doesn’t make it an easy decision, and I’m not going to stand up here and say it is easy,” he said, adding that the US had deferred a decision on providing cluster munitions for quite some time because it “required a real hard look at the potential harm to civilians”. “When we put all of that together, there was a unanimous recommendation from the national security team, and President Biden ultimately decided — in consultation with allies and partners and in consultation with members of Congress — to move forward on this step,” he said. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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Britain’s military chief has defended Ukraine’s counteroffensive and said its troops “continue to hold the initiative” amid criticism that the pushback against the Russian invasion is moving slowly. The comments have also come as the war-hit nation’s deputy defence minister on Thursday said “good news” had emerged in the eastern front of the battlefield. “In the north, they are holding and fixing Russian forces there and in the south they are making progress between 10km and 20km, depending on how you judge it,” Sir Tony Radakin was quoted as saying by The Guardian at the DSEI arms fair in London. “The idea that war is neat and tidy, and you can plan and predict it to the nth degree is nonsense,” said Britain’s most senior military officer. He said progress of the counteroffensive could not be measured by a predictable timetable and warned the UK is vulnerable to a potential missile or drone attack as he pushed for a further discussion on improving homeland security. There is an “aggressive world out there in terms of state threats”, he said, pointing out it is now easy to “get close to a country and fly drones in”. British armed forces were “having a bigger conversation about homeland defences”, the chief of the defence staff said and asked whether within that “we need to have a conversation about integrated missile defence”. Admiral Radakin has been closely monitoring the war with communication lines to Ukraine’s most senior military commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The comments come a week after Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg shot back at recent criticism of “slow” counteroffensive from Ukrainian troops as he pointed out the numbers of mines in the battlefield Ukraine is encountering are at a historic high. “The starting point is that the Russian army used to be the second strongest in the world. And now the Russian army is the second strongest in Ukraine. That’s quite impressive by Ukrainians,” he said. “No one ever said that this was going to be easy,” Mr Stoltenberg told lawmakers at the European parliament earlier this month. “Hardly any time in history we have seen more mines on the battlefield than we are seeing in Ukraine today. So it was obvious that this was going to be extremely difficult. “The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground. They have been able to breach the defensive lines of the Russian forces, and they are moving forward,” he said. Ukrainian officials said the war being fought in the country is unlike any other, as its air space has not been shut down and it does not have top-tier warplanes like F-16s. Last month, several US and other Western officials suggested the grinding war’s counteroffensive stage was falling short of expectations – but did not choose to be quoted on their claims. Some officials pointed holes in Ukraine’s strategy and blamed it for concentrating its forces in the wrong places. The counteroffensive has been backed by billions of dollars’ worth of Western military equipment. Read More Just 14 UK tanks for Ukraine? We must do better than that Sunak says Russian leader ‘doesn’t want to be held accountable’ at G20 US sends Ukraine controversial depleted uranium weapons that can pierce tank armour Zelensky needed to sack his defence minister – but it goes beyond just corruption scandals From Challenger to Leopard: How Ukraine’s tanks compare to Russia’s