(Brussels) The European Commission has recommended that Member States grant Ukraine the status of candidate to the European Union, the President of the European Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Friday.
Posted at 6:28
Updated at 7:07 am
As fighting rages in eastern Ukraine where the humanitarian situation is becoming “extremely alarming” according to the UN, France has announced that it will no longer receive Russian gas by pipeline.
Any green light from the EU at Ukraine’s request will be subject to conditions and must be validated unanimously by the Twenty-Seven before the start of long negotiations with a view to its accession.
“Ukraine is part of the European family,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wanted to reassure during a visit to Ukraine on Thursday, with his Italian and French counterparts, joined by the Romanian president.
“All four of us support immediate candidate status for membership,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed this “historic result”, hoping that the other 23 EU member states will rally to this position at the European summit on June 23 and 24.
Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi arrived Friday morning in Przemysl, Poland, on a special train after their surprise visit the day before to Kyiv, framed by important security measures.
A missile strike, an attack by a pro-Russian group or sabotage on the route of the convoy were the main threats.
The express examination of Kyiv’s candidacy, submitted in February, is unprecedentedly rapid, justified by the war. But the main difficulty will remain to succeed next week in achieving unanimity within the EU – the countries of Eastern Europe, sensitive to the threat at their borders being rather for, others like Denmark or the reserved Netherlands.
Beyond the political and economic benefits in the more or less long term (with the engagement of significant financial aid intended to support reforms and reconstruction), in the short term, that of the war, an acceptance of his candidacy would have an eminently symbolic dimension for Kyiv, of belonging to the “European family”, a family that protects its members.
An accepted candidacy from Ukraine would also open the question of its membership of Defense Europe, while the French and German leaders have pledged to continue their military support for Kyiv.
G7, first outing for Zelensky
In the wake of the European summit, Mr. Zelensky will be able to continue to plead his cause at the next G7 Summit from June 26 to 28, in Bavaria, where he will make his first exit from Ukrainian territory since the start of the Russian invasion at the end of February. .
In terms of the energy war, the manager of the French gas transmission network GRTgaz announced on Friday that it would no longer receive Russian gas by pipeline since June 15, with “the interruption of the physical flow between France and Germany” .
The Russian giant Gazprom has considerably reduced its deliveries to European countries in recent days, in particular to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which could have caused the interruption of supplies to France.
Gazprom will deliver only 50% of the gas requested by Eni on Friday, the Italian group also announced, the day after the accusations of “lies” launched by Mario Draghi against the Russian energy giant.
In the Donbass, the Ukrainian forces remain in difficulty in this region of the east of the country partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, which Moscow has set itself the objective of conquering.
On Friday, the UN stressed that “the humanitarian situation throughout Ukraine, particularly in eastern Donbass, is extremely alarming and continues to deteriorate rapidly”.
According to Ocha, the UN humanitarian agency, the situation is “particularly worrying” in Sievierodonetsk and its surroundings.
The fighting has been concentrated for several weeks on Sievierodonetsk and Lyssytchansk, two key cities for the control of Donbass, subjected to constant bombardments.
Missile on the “House of Culture”
The large Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk, where around 500 civilians have taken refuge, is impossible to evacuate without a “full ceasefire” due to “constant shelling and fighting”, the governor of the Luhansk region said on Friday, Sergey Gaidai.
This situation recalls, on a lesser scale, that of the Azovstal metallurgical steelworks in Mariupol, a strategic port in the south of the Donbass which fell into Russian hands in May after three months of siege.
Hundreds of civilians had taken refuge in underground galleries in Azovstal, before finding themselves trapped there alongside Ukrainian fighters, in extremely difficult conditions as the bombs rained down nonstop.
On Wednesday, Russia accused Ukrainian forces of having prevented the evacuation the day before of civilians from the factory, through a “humanitarian corridor” that Moscow had proposed to set up towards Russian-controlled territories in the north.
In Lysytchansk, a missile strike on the “House of Culture” where residents of the city were refugees left three dead and seven injured, the press service of the Ukrainian president said on Friday. Another civilian was killed in the middle of the street in a bombardment, according to the same source.
“We trust in the will of God, in the help of God, in the help of all the saints and of the Virgin Mary,” lists Sister Anastasia, who lives in a community of Orthodox nuns near the nearby town of Sloviansk.
She points to a large crater left by a missile launch in the middle of the garden. Beyond the neighboring fields are the Russian forces, which exchange artillery fire with the Ukrainian army.
In addition, the Ukrainian navy said on Friday that it had destroyed a Russian tugboat, the “Vasiliy Bekh”, which was transporting weapons and ammunition in the Black Sea to Serpents’ Island, which has become the symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Russia has “already lost strategically” its war in Ukraine and “will never take control” of the country, said British Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Tony Radakin.
“President Putin has used 25% of the power of his army to make tiny territorial gains,” the soldier said on Friday.
According to the UN, 4,452 civilians have been killed and 5,531 injured since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, according to the latest report provided on June 15. The UN regularly points out that “the figure is probably much higher”.