PRAGUE -- Ukraine can prevail in its battle to repel Russian forces with the "robust support" of its allies, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, as foreign ministers from the military alliance's 32 member countries gathered in Prague to discuss a fresh military aid framework for Kyiv.
The NATO gathering in the Czech capital, which is being attended by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will discuss an aid package for Ukraine that would be presented at NATO's summit in Washington in July.
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Speaking ahead of the meeting on May 30, Stoltenberg said it was time for the countries supplying military aid to Kyiv to discuss restrictions placed on Kyiv more than two years ago when Moscow first launched its full-scale invasion.
In recent months, Russia has launched withering air and ground assaults against Ukraine, which has struggled with ammunition shortages. Kyiv has pleaded for an acceleration of deliveries of ammunition and also has asked to be allowed to use longer-range weapons -- which came with restrictions on their usage into Russian territory -- to their full extent.
"Allies are delivering many different types of military support to Ukraine and some of them have imposed some restrictions on the use of these weapons.... These are national decisions," Stoltenberg said in a speech delivered in Prague.
"But I think that in light of how this war has evolved...the time has come to consider some of these restrictions, to enable the Ukrainians to really defend themselves."
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze told RFE/RL in an interview that Latvia has never imposed limitations on any of the weapons it has supplied to Ukraine and that Riga supports Ukraine's right to use weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory.
She emphasized that Kyiv needs a variety of weapons and should receive them from its allies more consistently, adding that there are "things that are being supplied without being spoken about publicly."
Blinken, who arrived in Prague after a trip to Moldova, immediately held talks with his Czech counterpart, Jan Liptovsky, on the issue of combating Russian disinformation as Moscow tries to drive a wedge between allies supporting Ukraine.
The top U.S. diplomat called Moscow's use of misinformation and disinformation “poison” and signed an agreement with the Czechs to combat it.
Blinken also visited a Czech military base, where armored vehicles that Prague is sending to Kyiv were on display, and was informed about Prague's drive to supply Ukraine with 1 million rounds of ammunition by the end of the year.
“We know that a major front in the competition that we have, the adversarial relationship that we have, notably with Russia, is on the information front,” Blinken said.
During the ministers' meeting, talks are scheduled on a plan presented by Stoltenberg in April on a framework that would transfer responsibility for military and civilian aid for Ukraine from an informal, U.S.-led group to the formal structures of the alliance.
SEE ALSO: Russia Has Taken Steps To Protect Its Oil Refineries. Ukraine Is Still Hitting Them.NATO is currently not officially offering lethal military supplies to Kyiv. Individual NATO member states have been channeling supplies through the Ukraine Contact Group (UCG), an initiative chaired by the United States known informally as the Ramstein Group.
The ministers are also likely debate whether to allow Kyiv to use Western-provided weapons to strike targets inside Russia. The United States and Germany have been opposed to allowing such a move, while Britain and France have been in favor.
Stoltenberg and the EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, have also voiced their approval of allowing Ukraine to use Western arms to hit military objectives on Russian territory under certain conditions.
As the two-day informal meeting of the alliance is set to kick off in Prague, Russia launched a large-scale attack early on May 30 that targeted military and civilian infrastructure in nine Ukrainian regions, causing casualties and damage.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Russian missiles struck two locations, wounding seven people, six of them women, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov reported.
"A two-story administrative building was hit, resulting in partial destruction, followed by a fire. Six women and one man received minor injuries," Synyehubov said.
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, is located just 35 kilometers from the Russian border and has been repeatedly pounded by Moscow's artillery and air strikes over the past several weeks as Ukraine's depleted air defenses and ammunition face increasing difficulties in repelling such attacks.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov earlier said critical infrastructure, including a gas pipeline, was damaged in the strikes, which also triggered a fire.
Separately, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down all 32 drones and seven of the 19 cruise missiles launched by Russia.
The missiles and drones were shot down over the Khmelnytskiy, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kherson, Kyiv, and Vinnytsya regions, it said.
Separately, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) said its naval drones sank two Russian "Tunets" boats in Crimea.
"On May 30, HUR's special unit Group 13, with the help of Ukrainian Magura V5 maritime attack drones, once again successfully attacked the ship depot of the aggressor state of Russia in the temporarily occupied Crimea," HUR said in a statement, adding that Russian troops used several attack helicopters in an unsuccessful attempt to repel the attack.
The Tunets is an 8.8-meter-long and 2.5-meter-wide diesel boat mainly used by Russian border guards.