“The unthinkable has happened here. We have seen the cruel face of Putin’s army. We have seen the recklessness and the coldheartedness with which they have been occupying the city,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
She and Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, travelled by train from Poland for their first meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Russia invaded in February. They were joined by Eduard Heger, the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
Two of the European Union’s top officials visited Ukraine on Friday in a show of solidarity for the country after Russian forces withdrew from around the capital.
EC president von der Leyen was visibly moved on a visit to Bucha, the town near Kyiv where evidence of an apparent massacre was discovered after Russia ended its occupation.
The visit makes them the most senior European delegation to have visited Kyiv since war broke out, after the prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic and the president of the European Parliament previously travelled to the city.
“I want to send a very strong message of unwavering support to the Ukrainian people and their brave fight for our common values,” Ms von der Leyen said on the eve of her visit.
As Mr Borrell had hoped, he and the commission chief can report to Mr Zelenskyy that the EU is about to ban coal imports from Russia after ambassadors from the bloc’s 27 countries approved the proposal late on Thursday.
A potential second step, banning oil deliveries, will be discussed on Monday, while Ukraine wants the EU to complete the set by stopping the gas imports on which it is most reliant.
As the EU leaders were about to arrive, as many as 50 people were killed and many more were wounded in a rocket strike at a railway station packed with civilians fleeing the threat of a major Russian offensive in the country’s east. /Argumentum.al
