The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have vowed to support Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union on a visit to Kyiv intended as a show of unity in the face of Russian advances and complaints from the Ukrainians about the pace of weapons supplies.
“My colleagues and I came here to Kyiv today with a clear message: ‘Ukraine belongs to the European family,’” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said at a joint press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis.
Draghi said: “The Ukrainian people defend every day the values of democracy and freedom that underpin the European project, our project. We cannot delay this process.”
Macron – who said, “Europe is by your side, and will remain so for as long as necessary, all the way to victory” – also pledged to send six more powerful truck-mounted artillery guns to Ukraine, as frustration in Kyiv grew over what they say is a slow delivery of heavy arms it says it needs to turn the tide against Moscow.
One Ukrainian official said this week that the country had only received 10% of the weapons it had requested from the west. Scholz has become the main target of complaints, with Ukraine particularly unhappy with Germany’s military aid.
“We appreciate the support already provided by partners, we expect new deliveries, primarily heavy weapons, modern rocket artillery, anti-missile defence systems,” Zelenskiy said. “Every day of delay or delayed decisions is an opportunity for the Russian military to kill Ukrainians or destroy our cities,” he said. “There is a direct correlation: the more powerful weapons we get, the faster we can liberate our people, our land.”
Asked by the BBC if the latest announcement on weapons was too little, too late, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said: “The announcements of new weapons delivered to Ukraine should be made on a weekly basis. And these weapons should be delivered in sufficient quantities. This is the reality … The truth is that we’re still outnumbered when it comes to artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and defence systems, and we cannot make any big progress until we strike a balance with Russia in the numbers on these three positions.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that “pumping” Ukraine with weapons was a “pointless” endeavour that would prolong suffering. Speaking before the Kyiv meeting, he said he hoped the leaders would “push President Zelenskiy to take a realistic look at the state of affairs”.
The leaders of the three largest EU economies were pictured together overnight on a train from Poland used to transport high-profile guests to Ukraine, but little information was given in advance about the details of the trip.
Soon after their arrival, they visited Irpin, a commuter town a few miles from Kyiv that was subject to some of the heaviest fighting in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion. Noting graffiti on a wall that read, “Make Europe, not war,” Macron said: “It’s very moving to see that. This is the right message.”
Scholz said that Irpin, like the neighbouring town of Bucha, had become “a symbol of the unimaginable cruelty of the Russian war, of senseless violence”.
Their show of support will be welcomed in Kyiv, especially as Macron has previously dampened Ukraine’s EU ambitions , saying it could take “decades” for Ukraine to be accepted into the bloc.
Ukraine has urged the EU to clear a path to membership, but the proposition has caused some misgivings in the 27-member bloc. The European commission is due to make a recommendation on Ukraine’s status as an EU candidate on Friday.
There were fears in Kyiv that the three leaders would put pressure on Kyiv to accept a peace deal favourable to Vladimir Putin, as Russia continues to make gains in the eastern Donbas area.
Commenting on recent statements by Macron that it was vital for the west not to “humiliate” Russia’s president, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy, told the German newspaper Bild: “They will say that we need to end the war that is causing food problems and economic problems.”
Some of those worries were addressed by Macron, who stressed that only Ukraine could negotiate with Russia and that neither “France nor Germany will do the negotiations for Ukraine”.
European unity has been challenged by the far-reaching consequences of Russia’s invasion, including the rising costs of living and spiralling energy prices across the continent.
A survey this week from nine EU member states plus the UK found that support for Ukraine remained high, but that preoccupations had shifted to the conflict’s wider economic impacts, further heightening fears in Kyiv that western support for the country would fade as Russia continues to make advances in the east of the country.
Speaking to journalists at the annual St Petersburg international economic forum in Russia on Thursday, Denis Pushilin, the leader of the self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk, said he hoped the so-called “special military operation” would be over by the end of the year, as both sides prepared for a prolonged war of attrition with no short-term end in sight.
Reuters contributed to this report
