Let Ukraine into European Union, Zelenskyy pleads
Even as Ukraine wages bloody resistance to the Russian invasion from its east, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned his focus west on Friday, pressing European Union officials in Kyiv to fast-track his country’s potential entry into the mighty 27-member bloc.
Zelenksyy’s entreaties to European leaders in snowy Kyiv came as his nation approaches an agonizing second year of defensive war, a grinding conflict with Russia that the Ukrainian president has framed as a battle to preserve European values.
Russia launched all-out war on Ukraine last Feb. 24. Eleven months later, Ukraine has humbled President Vladimir Putin’s army, pushing the invading forces back in the north and south, and sending the two sides into fierce warfare in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
Ukraine’s military successes have been supported by immense investments from the U.S. and European countries, which have redoubled their support this winter. Britain, Germany and Poland have all moved to send battle tanks to Ukraine in recent weeks, a commitment they had long resisted.
Overall, EU nations have spent some 50 billion, or about $54 billion, to support Ukraine to date, according to the bloc.
But European leaders seem more willing to send weapons and armored vehicles than they are to grease Ukraine’s path into the EU. Ukraine’s admission would require unanimous support within the bloc, and could shift power east in a complex alliance that is still smarting from Britain’s exit three years ago.
A joint statement released by the European Commission and Ukraine after Friday’s meetings did not appear to signal that an accelerated entry by Ukraine was at hand. The statement pledged full support in the war, but gave scant promises about membership.
“The EU will decide on further steps once all conditions specified in the Commission’s opinion are fully met,” said the statement. “Ukraine underlined its determination to meet the necessary requirements in order to start accession negotiations as soon as possible.”
Still, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, described Ukraine and the EU members as “family” and promised that the union’s support for the invaded nation is “rock solid.”
“The future of Ukraine is within the European Union,” said Michel, standing beside Zelenskyy at a news conference.
“Ukrainian people: You have made a clear choice for freedom, democracy and rule of law,” Michel declared. “And we in the EU have also made a clear decision: Your future is with us, in our common European Union. Your destiny is our destiny.”
The EU intends to provide an update on the process by the spring, according to the joint statement. Ukraine applied for membership in the economic and political alliance last February, four days after the war began, and received candidate status in June.
Zelenskyy has said he hopes to begin direct negotiations on a Ukrainian entry
into the EU before the end of 2023.
“We have quite specific agreements with our partners on how Ukraine will become even closer to the European Union,” Zelenskyy said in a speech to his country on Friday. “There is an understanding that it is possible to start negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the European Union this year.”
The Ukrainian president also said that he had spoken with European leaders about an upcoming EU sanctions package against Russia that is expected to be deployed as the war enters Year 2. The package would be the 10th the EU has directed at Russia since the start of the war, according to the bloc.
Michel said its sanctions regime has succeeded at “weakening Russia’s economy and depriving it of critical technologies.”
But Russia has shown no sign of withdrawing from a military morass that has exposed the weaknesses in Putin’s war machine and dragged on far longer than its designers in the Kremlin had hoped.
On Thursday, Putin commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad, groping for a dubious historical parallel for the war he has waged against his previously peaceful western neighbor.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians in the eastern front city of Kramatorsk reeled from a Russian rocket attack on an apartment complex that killed at least three people and wounded at least 17 more.
Throughout Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Russian missiles have pounded civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, and have sometimes created deadly scenes far from the frontlines.
The Ukrainian government has warned in recent days that Russian troops are massing for another potential offensive.
“The situation at the front remains very difficult,” Zelenskyy said in his Friday address to his country. “I thank all our soldiers who withstand the harsh pressure of the occupiers and who clearly and completely fulfill the task of defending our positions.
“And who,” Zelenskyy added, “even in such difficult conditions as on the front lines now, bring Ukraine good news.”