Ukraine has finally received the US-made cluster bombs, Pentagon confirmed on Thursday, in defiance of warnings that the dangerous munitions should not be provided to Kiev.

In 1990, then-US Secretary of State James Baker told Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east.” Since then, 19 countries have joined NATO, through nine different bid processes - encroaching on Russia’s border.

The Chinese peace plan on Ukraine urges both sides to agree to a gradual de-escalation and warns against the use of nuclear weapons.

The M1 Abrams is the main battle tank of the US military and is one the most powerful and sophisticated tanks in the world, however, for Ukraine that is both an advantage and a problem.

The US role in Ukraine has slowly escalated since the beginning of the war almost a year ago, raising the question of how far Washington is willing to go.

Despite conditions in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen by 10% for the year as a whole, the share prices of US defense contractors have surged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday vowed to fulfill the objectives of the country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine even as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy left for the US to lobby for more arms.