Ukraine gets possible path to EU, aid pledges
KYIV, UKRAINE >> The European Union's executive arm recommended putting Ukraine on a path to membership Friday, a symbolic boost for a country fending off a Russian onslaught that is killing civilians, flattening cities and threatening its very survival.
In another show of Western support, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv to offer continued aid and military training.
The European allies' latest embrace of Ukraine marked another setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched his war nearly four months ago, hoping to pull his exSoviet neighbor away from the West and back into Russia's sphere of influence.
At Russia's showpiece economic forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, Putin said Moscow “has nothing against” Ukraine joining the EU, because it “isn't a military organization, a political organization like NATO.” He also reprised his usual defense of the war, alleging it was necessary to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscowbacked rebels and to ensure Russia's own security.
Johnson's trip to Kyiv followed one Thursday by the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Romania, who pledged to support Ukraine without asking it to make any territorial concessions to Russia.
“We are with you to give you the strategic endurance that you will need,” Johnson said on his second visit to the country since the Feb. 24 start of the war. Although he did not detail the aid, he said Britain would lead a program that could train up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers every 120 days in an unspecified location outside the country.
The training program could “change the equation of this war,” he said. Ukraine has been taking heavy casualties in fighting in the east.
“I completely understand why you and your people can make no compromise with Putin because if Ukraine is suffering, if the Ukrainian troops are suffering, then I have to tell you that all the evidence is that Putin's troops are under acute pressure themselves and they are taking heavy casualties,” he said. “Their expenditure of munitions, of shells and other weaponry, is colossal.”
Since his April visit, “the Ukrainian grit, determination and resilience is stronger than ever, and I know that unbreakable resolve will long outlive the vain ambitions of President Putin,” he said.
Johnson said the U.K. will work to intensify the sanctions on Russia. He praised the resilience of Ukrainians and how “life is coming back to the streets” of Kyiv, but noted that “only a couple of hours away, a barbaric assault continues. Towns and villages are being reduced to rubble.”
Zelenskyy gave Johnson
a tour of a monastery where they lit candles and the British leader received an icon.
The European Commission's recommendation that Ukraine become a candidate for membership will be discussed by leaders of the 27-nation bloc next week in Brussels. The war has increased pressure on EU governments to fasttrack Ukraine's candidacy, but the process is expected to take years, and EU members remain divided over how quickly and fully to welcome new members.
Russia has pressed its offensive in the east, leaving desperate residents worried about their future.
“We are old people, we do not have a place to go. Where will I go?” asked Vira Miedientseva, an elderly resident grappling with the aftermath of an attack Thursday in Lysychansk, just across the river from Sievierodonetsk, where a key battle is raging.
In other developments Friday:
• Zelenskyy announced that Russia has freed Yuliia Paievska, a celebrated Ukrainian medic who used a body camera to record her work in Mariupol while the port city was under Russian siege.
• Russian state television showed video of two U.S. military veterans who went missing last week while fighting in Ukraine, confirming that the men were taken captive and raising fears about their fate.
• The Ukrainian navy claimed it destroyed a Russian boat carrying air defense systems to a strategic island in the Black Sea.