Ukraine gets a possible path to EU

• The European Union 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 arrived in Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to offer continued aid and military training, adding that evidence points to Russia “taking heavy casualties.”

The latest embrace of Ukraine by its European allies marked another setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched his war nearly four months ago, hoping to pull his ex-soviet neighbour 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 defence of the war, alleging it was necessary to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow- backed rebels and to ensure Russia’s own security.

Johnson’s trip to Kyiv followed one a day earlier by the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Romania.

“We are with you to give you the strategic endurance that you will need,” Johnson said on his second visit 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 outside the country.

The British-led training program could “change the equation of this war,” Johnson said. Ukraine has been taking heavy casualties in the battle for the country’s eastern industrial heartland.

“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.

The war has increased pressure on EU governments to fast-track Ukraine’s candidate status. But the process is expected to take years, and EU members remain divided over how quickly and fully to open their arms to new members.