War in Ukraine, day 855 | Security agreement with the EU: Zelensky welcomes a step towards “peace”

(Moscow) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, visiting Brussels on Thursday to sign a security agreement with the European Union, considered that this text constituted a step towards “peace and prosperity” on the continent.

The Ukrainian leader’s trip to Belgium comes days after the opening of formal negotiations for Kyiv’s membership in the European Union, more than two years after the start of the Russian invasion.

“Thank you to all EU leaders for this historic result. We have been waiting for this for a long time. This is very important for all of us,” Mr. Zelensky said, referring to these negotiations upon his arrival in Brussels to participate in a summit of EU heads of state and government.

“And of course, we will discuss today with the leaders the next steps,” he said, stressing the need for “air defenses” in the face of Russian bombing. “We urgently need them on the battlefield,” he insisted to the press, after shaking hands with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.

“We have the opportunity to sign an additional bilateral security agreement with Ukraine,” the latter confirmed. “This is very important so that we can send the message that we intend to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he added.

“We will sign three security agreements, including one with the entire EU,” Volodymyr Zelensky announced earlier on his X account.

Ukraine, for which Western support is essential, seeks to sustain this aid.

“Each step taken brings us closer to our historic goal of peace and prosperity in our common European home,” welcomed the Ukrainian president.

Ukraine has already signed 17 similar bilateral security agreements, including with the United States, France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan.

These are commitments made by Ukraine’s allies to provide military, financial, humanitarian and political aid, while Kyiv, lacking resources, is in difficulty facing Moscow on the Eastern front.

Russia sends 10,000 naturalized migrants to the front

Russia said Thursday that around 10,000 naturalized Russian foreign nationals had been sent to the front in Ukraine and acknowledged that others had preferred to leave its territory for fear of being mobilized.

Russia has been repeatedly accused of pressuring nationals of Central Asian countries living on its soil to join the army and several of these former Soviet republics have warned their citizens against the risk to be enlisted.

Alexander Bastrikin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, a powerful investigative body, stressed that authorities were tracking down naturalized citizens who had not registered with the military, as they were supposed to do.

“We caught more than 30,000 [personnes] who received citizenship [russe]but did not want to register for military service, we put them on the list,” he said during a conference, referring to the database collecting the names of people likely to to be enlisted.

“Already, some 10,000 have been sent to the zone of the special military operation,” he confided, using the euphemism imposed by the Russian state for the assault on the ‘Ukraine.

Millions of immigrants, mostly from Central Asia, work in Russia to support their families back home.

Faced with labor shortages due to decades of demographic crisis, this country has facilitated access to nationality to attract migrants.

But Russian citizenship requires its male holders to register with the army and serve under the flags if they are called up.

Mr. Bastrikine acknowledged that some workers had started “slowly to leave” due to the increase in inspections. He did not quantify this phenomenon.

In addition, police raids on workplaces and migrant homes increased after the attack, claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, at Crocus City Hall which left more than 140 dead in March, near Moscow. . The alleged attackers were nationals of Tajikistan.