Ukraine’s EU hopes given big boost
British PM Johnson offers additional aid, training in Kyiv visit
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 Feb. 24.
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.
“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 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.”
On Telegram, Zelenskyy said he was “grateful for the powerful support!”
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 betterequipped 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.
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.
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. The Ukrainian military said Moscow’s troops kept up relentless attacks on Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk, the focus of recent fighting. The military claimed Ukrainian forces pushed Russian fighters out of the village of Bohorodychne, north of Sloviansk.
Russia and its allies say they have taken about half of Donetsk and nearly all of Luhansk — the two regions that make up the Donbas. Sievierodonetsk and surrounding villages are in the last pocket of Luhansk region still in Ukrainian hands.
“The Russians are pouring fire on the city,” said Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai. “It’s getting harder and harder for us to fight in Sievierodonetsk.”
The constant shelling made it impossible for 568 people, including 38 children, sheltering in the Azot chemical plant in the city to escape, he said. Russian forces have destroyed all three bridges leading from the city, but Haidai said it still had not been fully blocked off.
Moscow’s envoy for Russia-backed separatists who control much of the territory around Sievierodonetsk said an evacuation from the Azot plant still could take place. Rodion Miroshnik of the self-proclaimed Luhansk’s People’s Republic said on social media that Russian troops and separatists are “ready to consider options for opening a humanitarian corridor for the exit of civilians, but subject to strict adherence to the cease-fire.”
Earlier this week, Miroshnik accused Kyiv of trying to disrupt civilian evacuations from Azot, a claim denied by Ukrainian officials.