E.U. leaders in Kyiv make no promises for membership
European Union leaders are in the Ukrainian capital for a summit meant to express solidarity with Ukraine and send a message to Moscow. While they reiterated ongoing support for Ukraine, they offered Kyiv no guarantees Friday that its request to join the 27-nation bloc would be met.
Such a decision, they said in a joint statement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, hinges on the country meeting “all conditions specified in the Commission’s opinion.”
Air raid sirens were heard in Kyiv early Friday ahead of the meeting, and again after the meeting, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described as proof that the EU “stands by Ukraine as firmly as ever.”
Any hopes that the summit would deliver fast-track EU accession for Ukraine were dashed Friday, as EU leaders expressed “commitment to further deepening our relationship,” but said membership was still contingent on outlined conditions being “fully met” by Kyiv. In his nightly address Thursday, Zelenskyy said his country “deserves to reach the beginning of negotiations on EU membership this year.”
The EU will provide Ukrainians with 35 million LED lightbulbs, von der Leyen announced on Twitter. Every kilowatt “of energy saved is precious to counter Russia’s energy war,” she said. The EU also announced a new aid package of 25 million euros to support humanitarian mine action, but made no mention of the fighter jets Ukrainian officials have called for in recent weeks. Earlier this week, President Biden rejected these requests and said the United States would not be sending the F-16 fighter jets.
A center for the prosecution of the crime of aggression in Ukraine will be established in The Hague, von der Leyen also said. The international body will work closely with the joint investigation teams supported by the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, she told a news conference Thursday with Zelenskyy. The crime of aggression is notoriously difficult to prosecute, and Ukraine has expressed its preference for establishing a Special Tribunal.
In other developments in the war in Ukraine:
• Germany has issued an export license for Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Friday, without providing further details. Last week, Germany announced plans to send 14 of its more modern Leopard 2 tanks and allow European countries to send theirs, as Washington pledged to give Ukraine 31 M1 Abrams tanks. The Leopard 2 is bigger, faster and more powerful than the Leopard 1, which was produced between 1965 and 1979.
• Ukraine’s prosecutor general is pressing criminal charges against the head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, whose private military forces are fighting alongside the Russian army. The statement said prosecutors interrogated two Wagner fighters in Europe. Last month, the United States designated the group a “transnational criminal organization.”
• “Russia will use the fuller potential it has to respond” to a new influx of Western weapons to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier that “the longer the range of weapons supplied to the Kyiv regime, the further we will have to drive them away.”
• British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Ukrainian pilots would need “months if not years” of training if Western fighter jets were sent to Ukraine. “We need to make sure that they can use what they are given,” he said Thursday in a British television interview.
• Norway will give Ukraine more aid after earning higher profits from oil exports, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told lawmakers Thursday, without specifying the size of the package. Norway has benefited from increased demand for energy supplies from European countries that have sought to reduce their reliance on Russian gas.
• Poland expects more than 30 countries to oppose the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the 2024 Olympics, its sports and tourism minister told Reuters.