Ukraine gets possible path to EU, aid pledges from Britain
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — 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 ex-Soviet 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.”
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. 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.
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. They placed flowers at an outdoor memorial wall displaying photos of soldiers who fell in fighting in 2014, viewed an exhibit of damaged, rusting Russian weapons, and greeted cheering crowds.
The possibility of membership in the EU, created to safeguard peace on the continent and serve as a model for the rule of law and prosperity, fulfills a wish of Zelenskyy and his Western-looking citizens.
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 fast-track 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.
Political and military support from Western countries has been key to Ukraine’s surprising success against larger and better-equipped Russian forces. Zelenskyy has also clamored for additional immediate support in the form of more and better weapons to turn the tide in the industrial east, known as the Donbas region.
In St. Petersburg, Putin decried the sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and its allies as “insane and, I would say, reckless.”
“The calculation was understandable: to impudently, with a swoop, crush the Russian economy by destroying business chains, forcing the withdrawal of Western companies from the Russian market, freezing domestic assets, hitting industry, finance, and the people’s standard of living. It didn’t work,” he said.
In other developments Friday:
• The war’s disruption to exports of grain and other crops from Ukraine that feed the world has captured global attention and sent bread prices soaring across the world.
• The organizer of the Eurovision Song Contest said it will start talks with the BBC on possibly holding next year’s event in the U.K. after concluding it can’t be held in Ukraine. The Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 contest, buoying Ukrainian spirits. The event is traditionally staged by the previous year’s winner.
Russian forces have switched their focus to the Donbas after a series of setbacks early in the war, including the failure to seize Ukraine’s capital.