A Ukrainian official overseeing the country’s push to join the European Union said on Wednesday it was “100 per cent” sure all 27 EU countries would approve Ukraine’s candidacy for the EU during a summit this week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed similar optimism, calling it a “critical moment” for Ukraine. Ukraine’s bid is the top job for EU leaders meeting in Brussels. In an interview with the Associated Press, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna said the decision could only be taken on Thursday, when the leaders’ summit begins. Stefanishyna said the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark were skeptical about starting accession talks with Ukraine, while Ukraine is fighting the Russian invasion, but is now supportive. Asked how confident she was that Ukraine would be accepted as an EU candidate, she said: “The day before the summit starts, I can say 100 percent.” The EU executive’s weight was shed on Ukraine’s candidacy last week. Stefanishyna described the European Commission ratification as “a change of game” that had removed the ground from “the feet of those who hesitate the most”. EU candidate status, which can only be granted if the existing Member States agree unanimously, is the first step towards accession. It does not provide any security guarantees or automatic right to join the block. Ukraine’s full accession will depend on whether the war-torn country can meet political and economic conditions. Potential newcomers must prove that they meet the standards of democratic principles and must absorb 80,000 pages of rules that cover everything from trade and immigration to fertilizers and the rule of law. Stefanishyna told the AP that she believed Ukraine could join the EU within years, not the decades predicted by some European officials. “We are already very integrated into the European Union,” he said. “We want to be a strong and competitive Member State, so it may take two to 10 years.” To help candidates, the block can provide technical and financial assistance. European officials say Ukraine has already implemented about 70 percent of EU rules, regulations and standards, but has also highlighted corruption and the need for deep political and economic reforms. In a fictitious conversation with Canadian college students Wednesday, Zelenskyy described the Brussels summit as “two decisive days” that he, like Stefanishyna, believed would lead to the approval of Ukraine’s candidacy for the EU. “This is a very critical moment for us, because some in my group say it’s like going out into the light from the dark,” he said. “As far as our army and society are concerned, this is a great motivation, a great motivation for the unity and victory of the Ukrainian people.” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croix said he had spoken to Zelensky on Wednesday and assured him that Belgium would support Ukraine’s candidacy. “Significant efforts will be needed, especially to fight corruption and establish an effective rule of law,” De Cross said. “But I am convinced that it is precisely the (post-war) reconstruction of Ukraine that will provide opportunities for significant steps forward.”
In other developments:
Press Freedom Reporters Without Borders says a Ukrainian photojournalist and a accompanying soldier appear to have been “cold-bloodedly executed” during the first weeks of the war as they searched the Russian-occupied forests for a missing drone. The team sent investigators to the forest north of the capital, Kiev, where the bodies of Maks Levin and soldier Oleksiy Chernyshov were found on April 1. The team said its team measured 14 bullet holes in the burnt cube of their car and found debris apparently left over from Russian soldiers. “Russian forces have occupied three villages in the hotly contested eastern part of Ukraine,” a local official said. The governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the villages were located near Lysychansk, the last town in his province still under full Ukrainian control. The Russians also captured a strategic coal village, Toshkivka, enabling them to intensify their attacks, Haidai said. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that Russian forces had killed up to 500 Ukrainian soldiers in a raid on Tuesday against a shipyard in Mykolaiv. The ministry also said Ukrainian forces had evacuated up to 30 wounded and eight dead American and British fighters near Mykolaivka, a town in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed these allegations. Instead, they reported more Russian bombing raids on Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said that in some battles, for every artillery shell fired by Ukrainian forces, the Russian army fires at least six. – Satellite images of Snake Island appear to show damage from a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-occupied island in the Black Sea. Maxar Technologies images taken on Tuesday show three new burned areas that did not exist four days earlier. Russia and Ukraine offer conflicting reports of the attack. The southern command of the Ukrainian army said it had caused “significant losses” to Russian troops in an attack using “various forces and methods of destruction”, while the Russian Ministry of Defense said that its air defense had successfully repulsed the Ukrainian attack. Russian forces occupied the small rocky island in the early days of the war and used it to strengthen their control of the northwestern part of the sea. Russian officials say a drone strike has set fire to an oil refinery in southwestern Russia on Wednesday. The fire affected a piece of machinery at the Novoshakhtinsk plant in the Rostov-on-Don region. Authorities said dozens of firefighters quickly contained the blaze and no one was injured. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the strike. The Turkish Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that a Turkish ship was allowed to leave the Russian-occupied port of the Azov Sea in Mariupol following talks between Turkish and Russian Defense Ministry officials. A ministry statement said a Turkish cargo ship, the Azov Concord, was the first foreign ship to be allowed to leave Mariupol. The ministry did not say what the truck was carrying. The war has halted critical grain exports by sea. Turkish and Russian military delegations met in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss a possible deal to send grain to Ukraine via the Black Sea. The French Armed Forces have carried out a surprise military exercise in Estonia, deploying more than 100 paratroopers in the Baltic country bordering Russia, the French Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday. The airstrike, dubbed “Thunder Lynx”, allowed about 100 French paratroopers to be dropped “over an area secured by Estonian soldiers” in a short period of time, the statement said. The exercise in Estonia, a NATO member, was carried out as an act of “strategic solidarity” during Russia’s war in Ukraine. Sam Petrequin in Brussels, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed.
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