About three months after the offensive began, Russia resumed bombings in southeastern Ukraine on Sunday, 22nd. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will deliver a speech on Monday (23rd) at the opening of the Davos Economic Forum, where he is expected to seek international assistance from his country. Paris on Sunday threw a bucket of cold water at Kiev’s prospects for Ukraine’s possible accession to the European Union (EU), saying membership would take “15 or 20 years without a doubt”.
Zelensky is preparing his speech by video conferencing before the meeting of the Economic Forum, which will start on Monday after two years due to Covid-19, in Davos, Switzerland.
The Ukrainian president will be the first head of state to speak at the summit. Ukrainian political officials will personally be present at the Forum, Russians are excluded.
Zelensky should use the platform to encourage the world to provide more aid to Ukraine, both financially and militarily. Ukraine’s president also said he could reiterate Kiev’s bid for EU membership as a “priority”.
long attendance
But Paris again denied a short-term Ukrainian membership on Sunday. “We have to be honest (…) we would be lying if we said that Ukraine will join the EU in six months, in a year or two,” said Clément Beaune, France’s Minister for European Affairs.
But joining the European political community, proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron at the beginning of May, is “complementary to the EU” and “could offer a political and concrete project to countries that are not in the EU and wish to converge,” the minister assured us.
It is a perspective that is coldly received in Kiev and that divides the member states of the bloc. Dmytro Kuleba, head of Ukrainian diplomacy, on Thursday denounced what he called “second-class treatment” in the name of “certain capitals”.
On Saturday, President Zelensky was clear: “We don’t need alternatives to Ukraine’s candidacy for the European Union, we don’t need these commitments with Russia”.
On Sunday, before the Ukrainian Parliament, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he would not abandon his efforts “unless Ukraine is a member of the EU” and said “there have been voices in Europe recently to ask Ukraine to accept certain things”. demands from Putin”.
If Western countries sacrifice Ukraine “for their own peace, economic interests or political ambitions”, it will not only be an inch of their territory or a part of their sovereignty, but it will be a huge blow to the Ukrainian people. “Western,” Duda warned.
“Only Ukraine should decide its future (…) There can be no negotiations and decisions behind Ukraine’s shores. Nothing will happen without you. Absolutely! It’s a strict rule. It has to be followed,” he insisted.
The European political community project will be discussed at a European meeting at the end of June.
Russian attacks
After failing to seize control of Kyiv and its region since March, Russian troops have focused their efforts on eastern Ukraine, which has been largely in the hands of pro-Russian separatists since 2014 and where fighting is intense.
According to the Ukrainian presidency, Russian bombs hit the cities of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Zaporijia in the early hours of Sunday.
Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko announced that seven civilians were killed and 10 injured in a bomb attack in the Donetsk region on Saturday. In Lugansk, city governor Sergui Gaidai said on the same social network that one person was killed and two others were injured.
“The Russians are using all their strength to seize Severodonetsk in the Lugansk region, where attacks have increased in recent days,” Gaidai said on Saturday night.
In a daily press conference on Sunday, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that the Russian military is continuing “missile and air strikes across the region” and “increasing the intensity of using aviation to destroy important infrastructure”.
Russia claimed to bomb a significant stockpile of weapons supplied to Ukraine by Western countries, but this has not been confirmed by any independent source.
Martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine were extended by three months on Sunday until August 23, which may indicate that the conflict will last a long time.
source: Noticias
