'It is the biggest step towards strengthening Europe that could have been made right now, in our time, and when the Russian war is testing our ability to preserve freedom and unity,' President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tells EU leaders.
KYIV, Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s formal candidature to join the European Union was a big step towards strengthening Europe at a time when Russia was testing its freedom and unity.
“But this decision is not just being made for the benefit of Ukraine. It is the biggest step towards strengthening Europe that could have been made right now, in our time, and when the Russian war is testing our ability to preserve freedom and unity,” he said. Moldova also became an official EU candidate, signalling the bloc’s intention to reach deep into the former Soviet Union.
The battle there is “entering a sort of fearsome climax”, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said on Thursday. Russian-backed separatist forces said there was fierce fighting underway around Ukrainian positions in Hirske, which lies on the western side of the main north-south road to Lysychansk, and Zolote, another settlement to the south.
A river port and ship-building centre just off the Black Sea, Mykolaiv has been a bastion against Russian efforts to push West towards Ukraine’s main port city of Odesa.
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