EU confirms Ukraine’s candidacy, fights against Russian motives – 06/24/2022 03:38 PM

Protesters rally in Brussels on June 23, 2022 in support of Ukraine’s EU candidate status (AFP / Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)

The European Union approved Ukraine’s candidacy at a summit in Brussels on Thursday, almost four months after the start of an invasion by the Russian military.

“Today marks an important step in your path to the EU,” European Council President Charles Michel congratulated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zhelensky on Twitter.

The latter, in his speech via video conference to twenty-seven delegates, welcomed the political “victory” that his people had hoped for since the Soviet republic gained independence from Ukraine in 1991.

“Ukrainian and European flags will fly together when we rebuild our country after this war,” he stressed in a daily video address to his comrades on Thursday evening.

While Volodymyr Zelensky still predicted a “definite” victory against the Russian army, Serguiï Gaïdaï, governor of the Lukansk region, dropped the word “retreat” on Severodonetsk, a major city in the Donbass.

“Under the fire of incessant shelling, we have suffered more damage and retreat may be necessary,” the official warned, referring to daily reports on the situation in Donbass.

“There are 568 civilian shelters in Azot,” said Severodonetsk Industrial Zone, the only sector in the city still in the hands of Ukrainian troops. Guido said.

– “vain” protest –

Severdonetsk, which has been bombed by the Russians for weeks, is an important step in their plan to capture all of this industrial base in eastern Ukraine.

A citizen (AFP / Anatolii Stepanov) on the phone near the village of Svyado-Pokrovsky in the Donetsk region on June 23, 2022

Ukrainian opposition in Lyssytchansk and Severodonetsk was “in vain”, a representative of pro-Russian separatists was ousted earlier Thursday.

“At the rate at which our soldiers are leaving, the whole of the Lukansk People’s Republic will soon be liberated,” Lt. Col. Andrei Morocco told the AFP via video call.

As an indication of Ukraine’s difficulties in the operational arena, and the governor of the Donetsk region in the south, Pavlo Girilenko told the AFP on Thursday that no city under his administration was “safe” for its citizens. Being very violent.

Anti-aircraft warnings rang overnight in several major Ukrainian cities from Donetsk to Odessa from Thursday to Friday.

On June 23, 2022, a Ukrainian military tank passes near a refinery not far from Lyczynsk (AFP / Anatoly Stepanov)

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that granting EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova is a very strong signal against Russia, calling it “a strong and political signal for a united Europe.” “We are advancing very fast” and “we owe it all to the Ukrainian people who are fighting to protect our values, their sovereignty and their territorial integrity.”

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned the “selfish actions” of the West and used the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) virtual summit to be held on the same day as Brussels. Lead Modif of the Kremlin’s rhetoric to “create a real multipolar system” for the BRICS leadership.

The Western Balkans, which have been barred from the EU front for years, have not hidden their bitterness over the length of the process, for their part, which is already applying for membership.

On June 23, 2022, Ukrainian soldiers in an armored carrier carrier on a road in the Lukansk region of eastern Ukraine (AFP / Anatolii Stepanov)

Ahead of a meeting with European leaders in Brussels, Albanian Prime Minister Eddie Ramadhan said it was “a good thing” to give Kiev the status of a candidate. But he advised the Ukrainians to “no illusions” about joining soon.

Several representatives of the member states warned that “there should be no illusions” about the rapid unification of the Ukrainians. Mr. Macron thus estimated that in May kyiv membership would take “ten years”.

– Weapons, G7 and NATO –

On the ground, undervalued by the artillery of Russian artillery and air forces, Ukrainian forces are now relying on their confidence in the arrival of heavy weapons that are constantly being demanded from Western allies such as rocket launchers.

File on the Himmers Rocket Launcher (AFP /)

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov announced on Thursday, the photo in support, the arrival of the first copies of these powerful and accurate weapons, just hours before the White House announced the new components of the $ 450 million military aid. .

“Summer will be hot for the Russian occupiers. For some of them it will be the last,” he threatened, noting how many of these mobile batteries with a range of 80km were delivered by Americans at this point.

The G7 and NATO summits are set to take place in Brussels these days following Thursday’s European summit. The question of financial and military assistance to kyiv should be at the center of the debate.

A woman walks by a ditch on June 23, 2022 in the city of Shivarsk in the Donetsk region (AFP / Anatolii Stepanov)

The Russian military continues to bomb the Mykolaiv area (south), where it announced on Thursday that it had destroyed 49 fuel reserves and three armored repair centers.

The ports of Mykolaiv and Odessa have been blocked since the beginning of the conflict, which until then has blocked maritime transport of agricultural raw materials, Ukraine’s main export route.

However, long-term blockages in Ukrainian granaries and many countries that depend on Russian fertilizers can have serious consequences for food.

In Ukraine, it is reminiscent of the famine of the 1930s, when Stalin planned to break the free will of the Ukrainians, referring to the Ukrainian word “holodomore”, which in 1932 and 1933 referred to the peasants as “famine annihilation.” Caused millions of deaths, according to estimates by Soviet rule and historians.

Maria Koncharova (AFP / SERGEY BOBOK) at her garden in Kharkiv on June 22, 2022

“I think hunger will return,” Maria Koncharova, a famine survivor in the 1930s, told AFP in her village of Seremushna in the Kharkiv region (east).

“A lot of countries help us. They provide for us, we distribute goods to the people. But how long does God know?”, Begins the old woman.