2023-06-01 10:18:08
“When we win, the war will stop. Russia can stop it before leaving our territory”. That is the message that Volodímir Zelenski has sent to Vladimir Putin upon his arrival at the Mimi castle, in the Moldovan town of Bulboaca, where he is going to participate in the meeting of the European Political Community after having done so by videoconference eight months ago. “How long will the war last?” journalists have asked him. “Until our victory,” replied the Ukrainian president, who is receiving arming of the EU and other partners to launch the counteroffensive with which they hope that the war enters a new phase and the conditions for a peace negotiation can be given.
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Zelenski, whose face reflects fatigue, was the first leader to reach the summit, which is held just a few kilometers from the border with Ukraine, and is the one who will have, together with the hostess, Maia Sandu, a tighter schedule taking advantage of the appointment to demand more support from the rest of the heads of government and, specifically, that they send him fighters, a matter that had been taboo since the beginning of the war, but to which the door has been opened since the US gave the go-ahead for the training of Ukrainian pilots.
The appointment will serve again to wrap up Zelenski before Vladimir Putin and also to send a message of unity to the Russian president from a former Soviet republic that it has also begun the path to join the EU and that it is in the crosshairs of the Kremlin, which the allies accuse of trying to destabilize the country. “A few kilometers from Ukraine, we will send a strong message from many countries defending international law, the right of people to defend the sovereignty of countries”, said the high representative, Josep Borrell, about the meeting that hosts the EU , but also about twenty European countries, from the Balkans or the Caucasus to the United Kingdom. “Russia is not here not because we do not want to invite Russia, but because Putin has excluded Russia from this community by launching this unjustified attack against Ukraine,” the head of European diplomacy has sentenced.
But what Ukraine is getting is not enough. The Ukrainian president continues to ask the allies for help. “We need strong support on the battlefield,” he stressed before specifying that one of the issues that he will address with the leaders in the bilateral meetings will be the coalition for sending fighters, which for now has only begun its journey with the ‘yes’ to pilot training. Defense Minister Margarita Robles has always said that Spain will not be in that team because it does not have the F-16 that Ukraine is asking for. It is expected that this Thursday he will hold a bilateral meeting with Pedro Sánchez, who will assume the rotating presidency of the EU in a month.
As his country grapples with Russian invasion, Zelensky looks at the steps ahead for Ukraine’s EU membership. In the coming weeks the European Commission will give its first evaluation, although the most important will be at the end of the year. Even so, the road is long and the processes of incorporation into the club last years in the best of cases and even decades.
Zelensky also appeals to NATO. “Ukraine is ready to join NATO. We are waiting for NATO to be ready to have Ukraine”, he has expressed. Aware that this path is even more complicated, he has requested “security guarantees” not only for his country but also for others, such as Moldova, which have a potential risk, as he has pointed out. That’s him debate that the allies havehow to engage with Ukraine beyond the shipment of weapons.
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