Lhe trip of the new head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, and the new president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, comes at a time when tensions are at their highest between Moscow and the West after Ukrainian American and British missile strikes on the Russian soil and Russia's firing of an experimental hypersonic missile, as well as nuclear threats.
As calls to begin negotiations with Moscow become more pressing, including from kyiv's allies, Mr. Zelensky assured that his country needs “weapons, including a good number or a sufficient number of weapons long distance, of different types”.
He also spoke of the need for “a step forward with NATO”. “The invitation to Ukraine to join NATO is necessary for our survival,” he argued, while Moscow claims to have launched its invasion to prevent in particular a rapprochement between kyiv and the Atlantic Alliance. “Only when we have all these elements and we are strong will we have to establish […] the agenda of the meeting with the assassins,” Mr. Zelensky said.
“Very serious situation”
A few hours earlier, European Council President Antonio Costa had said that his visit to kyiv was “a clear message”. “We stand alongside Ukraine and we continue to give it our full support,” he told journalists, including those from AFP.
The new leadership team of the European Union is keen to show strong support for Ukraine at a time when its forces are retreating on the front and when the imminent arrival of Donald Trump at the White House raises fears of a halt to the American aid to kyiv. A sign of these difficulties, the Russian army claimed Sunday the capture of two new villages in eastern Ukraine, Illinka and Petrivka, in a region where its advances have accelerated to a level that had not been seen before. since the very first weeks of the war.
Ukraine has also been targeted in recent weeks by several waves of strikes on its energy infrastructure, which caused massive power cuts as winter approached. “The situation in Ukraine is very, very serious, but it is clear that it also has a very high cost for Russia,” assured Kaja Kallas, former Prime Minister of Estonia, known to be a supporter of a hard line against Moscow.
On Friday, Mr. Zelensky called on NATO to offer protection to the regions of Ukraine still controlled by kyiv and suggested that he would then be ready to immediately give up on recovering the territories occupied by Russia. Vladimir Putin, for his part, is demanding that Ukraine cede four regions in the south and east that Russia partially occupies, in addition to Crimea annexed in 2014, and renounces joining NATO.
Exclude nothing
Mme Kallas affirmed for his part that “the strongest guarantee of security is membership in NATO”. Western diplomats, however, say there is little chance that the Alliance will grant Ukraine membership status any time soon, given opposition from a large number of countries who fear being drawn into war. directly with Russia.
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Kangaroo of the day
Answer
According to Mme Kallas, the EU should for its part “exclude nothing” regarding the sending of European troops to Ukrainian soil to help enforce a possible ceasefire, another measure which involves a risk of direct conflict with Moscow. “We should maintain strategic ambiguity on this subject,” she argued. Mr. Zelensky estimated that “half of the allies would cease their support” if kyiv made such a request.
The EU will continue to seek to put kyiv in a “strong” position in the event of negotiations with Moscow, explained Ms.me Kallas. However, she admitted that it was becoming “increasingly difficult” for the 27 member states to agree on new ways to increase their support for Ukraine. On the ground, Russian strikes continued on Sunday. In Kherson, southern Ukraine, three people were killed and eleven injured in the explosion of a minibus, according to local authorities.
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