LATEST HEADLINES

• NATO defense leaders should discuss Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant at their summit this week, said Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. She accused Ukraine of "systematic infliction of damage" nuclear plant and that "the NATO summit's key attention should be devoted to it."

• Vilnius has been turned into a fortress defended by advanced weaponry to protect U.S. President Joe Biden and other NATO alliance leaders meeting next week only 20 miles from Lithuania's razor-wire topped border fence with Russian ally Belarus. READ MORE BELOW

• Russian artillery shelling killed at least eight civilians and wounded 13 in Lyman in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Saturday, the Ukraine military said.

• Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov welcomed a U.S. decision to send cluster bombs to Kyiv, saying it would help to liberate Ukrainian territory but promised the munitions would not be used in Russia.

• Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy brought home from Turkey on Saturday five former commanders of Ukraine's garrison in Mariupol, a highly symbolic achievement that Russia said violated a prisoner exchange deal engineered last year. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ankara had promised under the exchange agreement to keep the men in Turkey and complained Moscow had not been informed.

• Dmitry Peskov said the release of the prisoners was a result of heavy pressure from Turkey's NATO allies ahead of next week's summit of the military alliance at which Ukraine hopes to receive a positive sign about its future membership.

• On the counter-offensive launched by Ukrainian forces in the past month, Denys Prokopenko, one of the five commanders released, said his men "will have our word to say in the battles. The most important thing is that Ukraine has seized the strategic initiative and is advancing."

• Poland has begun moving over 1,000 troops to the east of the country, its defense minister said, amid rising concern in the NATO-member that the presence of Wagner Group fighters in Belarus could lead to increased tension on its border.

IN DEPTH

Vilnius turned into fortress for NATO meeting

NATO has turned Vilnius into a fortress defended by advanced weaponry to protect U.S. President Joe Biden and other alliance leaders meeting next week only 20 miles from Lithuania's razor-wire topped border fence with Russian ally Belarus.

Sixteen NATO allies have sent a total of about 1,000 troops to safeguard the July 11-12 summit, which will take place only 94 miles from Russia itself. Many are also providing advanced air defense systems which the Baltic states lack.

"It would be more than irresponsible to have our sky unprotected as Biden and leaders of 40 countries are arriving," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.

The Baltic countries of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, once under Moscow's rule but part of both NATO and the European Union since 2004, all spend above 2 percent of their economies on defense, a larger share than most other NATO allies.

But for the region with a total population of about six million people, this is not enough to sustain large militaries, invest in their own fighter jets or advanced air defense.

Germany deployed 12 Patriot missile launchers, used to intercept ballistic and cruise missiles or warplanes.

Spain has brought a NASAMS air defence system, France is sending Caesar self-propelled howitzers, France, Finland, and Denmark are basing military jets in Lithuania, and the UK and France are supplying anti-drone capabilities.

Poland and Germany also sent helicopter-enhanced special operations forces and others are sending equipment to deal with any potential chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks.

For Nauseda, the allied effort to ensure air safety during the leader's gathering means NATO needs to urgently set up permanent air defenses in the Baltic states.

"We think about what happens after the summit ends, and we will work with allies to create a rotating force for a permanent air protection," he said.

Lithuania has tripled the deployment of border guards at the Belarus and Russian borders for the summer, augmented by officers from Latvia and Poland. The two countries have also sent police to help patrol Vilnius.

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