Zelenskyy makes emotional appeal for EU membership
BRUSSELS — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Western allies Thursday for more weapons and said “a Ukraine that is winning” its war with Russia should become a member of the European Union, arguing the bloc won’t be complete without it.
Zelenskyy made his appeal during an emotional day at EU headquarters in Brussels as he wrapped up a rare, two-day trip outside Ukraine to seek new weaponry from the West to repel the invasion that Moscow has been waging for nearly a year. As he spoke, a new offensive by Russia in eastern Ukraine was underway.
Zelenskyy, who also visited the U.K. and France, received rapturous applause and cheers from the European Parliament and a summit of the 27 EU leaders, insisting in his speech that the fight with Russia was one for the freedom of all of Europe.
“A Ukraine that is winning is going to be member of the European Union,”
Zelenskyy said, building his appeal on the common destiny Ukraine and the bloc face in confronting Russia.
EU membership talks should start later this year, Zelenskyy said, an ambitious request given the huge task. Such a move would help motivate Ukrainian soldiers in their defense of the country, he said.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, said “there is no rigid timeline.” In practice, membership often has taken decades to complete.
Before Zelenskyy’s speech, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said allies should consider “quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems” and fighter jets to Ukraine. The response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential,” she said.
Metsola also told Zelenskyy, “We were with you then, we are with you now, we will be with you for as long as it takes.”
A draft of the summit’s conclusions said “the European Union will stand by
Ukraine with steadfast support for as long as it takes.”
While in Brussels, Zelenskyy asked Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger to give Ukraine its grounded Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, and he replied: “We will work on” the request.
Fighting in Ukraine intensified Thursday, with Kyiv’s military intelligence agency saying Russian forces have launched an offensive in the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with the aim to grab full control of the entire industrial region, known as the Donbas.
“An escalation is underway and the main goal is to seize Donbas by the end of March,” Main Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian television.
In Donetsk, the front line expanded significantly over the previous day, with fierce battles taking place as Moscow’s forces closed in on key Ukrainian-held towns, according to regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russian shelling struck a kindergarten, hospital, cultural center, factory and apartment buildings, he said.