A Russian missile destroyed an apartment building in the city of Kramatorsk on Thursday (2), moments before European Union officials arrived in the capital, Kiev, for talks seen as essential for bringing the invaded country closer to the bloc.
The attack, in eastern Ukraine, comes amid a surge in offensives in the region. A scenario that promises to get worse as we mark the one year since the beginning of the war, according to the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov. According to him, Russia intends to use the approximately 300,000 troops it called up last year for a huge offensive on February 24 in the east and south of the country.
“We are here together to show that the European Union supports Ukraine as firmly as ever,” said Ursula van der Leyen, leader of the European Commission -the EU’s executive arm-, on social media after arriving in the capital by train accompanied by a dozen senior group officers.
The bloc gave the green light to Kiev’s candidacy for the European Union last summer, in a primarily symbolic gesture amid the war with Russia. His attempt to get closer to the invaded country does not, however, mean greater speed in the accession process, as President Volodimir Zelensky seems to want. The path to effective entry can take years, as the process requires profound reforms in the country.
One of the reforms demanded by the EU for Ukraine is the adoption of a series of anti-corruption measures – the nation has the second highest degree of the category on the continent, surpassed only by Russia. A recently leaked bloc document praised Ukraine’s progress in this regard and said its future points to the EU, but hinted there was still a long way to go.
The Ukrainian government has carried out a series of operations in this regard in recent days, for example issuing search and seizure warrants against a former minister and a tax official and arresting an oligarch. The operations followed the resignation of a number of senior Army officers.
Kiev applied for EU membership four days after Russian troops crossed its borders in February. Following this, Moldova and Georgia, which also joined the Soviet Union and which, like Ukraine, are fighting separatists in regions occupied by Moscow’s military, repeated the movement.
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