Zelenskiy makes visit close to front line in southern Mykolayiv region

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the southern Mykolayiv region close to the front line, meeting troops and the regional governor, according to his press office.

Ukraine said its forces had pushed back a Russian assault outside the key eastern city of Severodonetsk as fighting continued in the Donbas region.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its missiles struck Ukrainian artillery positions in the region.

Rockets hit a southern district of Ukraine’s central city of Kryvyi Rih on Saturday leading to at least two casualties, local authorities said in posts on messaging app Telegram.

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Meanwhile, speaking on his return to the UK after his unannounced visit to Kyiv, Boris Johnson said the West must continue to support the Ukrainians as they seek to recover territory seized by Russia, saying it would be a “catastrophe” if President Vladimir Putin was able to claim victory.

The British prime minister warned that Ukraine should not be encouraged to accept a “bad peace” which he said would simply be the prelude to a renewed Russian offensive.

Mr Johnson defended his decision to pull out of a conference of northern Tories on Friday so he could meet Mr Zelenskiy.

The timing of the visit led to accusations he was snubbing the north of England ahead of a byelection in Wakefield in West Yorkshire which the Tories are widely expected to lose.

However, speaking to reporters at RAF Brize Norton upon his return, Mr Johnson said it was important to demonstrate the UK’s support at a time when the Ukrainians were “suffering terribly” in the face of the ongoing Russian offensive in the Donbas.

“I think it is very important to go to Ukraine at a particularly critical time. The worry that we have is that a bit of Ukraine-fatigue is starting to set in around the world,” he said.

In his talks with President Zelenskiy, Mr Johnson said Britain would be prepared to train tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops as they continue to fight back against the Russians.

Mr Johnson said that it was important to prevent the Russians “freezing” the conflict so they could consolidate their gains before mounting another attack.

He said the Ukrainians should be supported in their ambition to regain territory occupied by the Russian forces since they invaded in February.

However, he stopped short of calling for the recovery of all the lands Ukraine had lost since 2014 – including Crimea – something British foreign secretary Liz Truss has previously called for.

“It would a catastrophe if Putin won,” Mr Johnson said. “He’d love nothing more than to say: ‘Let’s freeze this conflict, let’s have a ceasefire like we had back in 2014.’ For him, that would be a tremendous victory. You’d have a situation in which Putin was able to consolidate his gains and then to launch another attack.”

Mr Johnson’s visit was warmly welcomed by the Ukrainians, with television footage showing Mr Zelenskiy showing the prime minister the wreckage of burned out Russian tanks and other vehicles on display in Kyiv’s St Michaels’s Square.

Britain’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Russia had probably renewed its efforts to advance south of Ukraine’s eastern city of Izium in the last 48 hours.

Its goal is to penetrate deeper into the Donetsk region and envelope the pocket around the embattled city of Severodonetsk from the north, it said on Twitter.

If trapped Ukrainian civilians do not take up an offer of leaving via a corridor, Russia is likely to claim justification in making less of a distinction between them and any Ukrainian military targets in the area, the ministry added.

Elsewhere, more than 70 miners were trapped in a coal mine in Donetsk after power to the pit was cut. Russian state news agency RIA blamed the incident on Ukraine, accusing it of launching attacks in the eastern region causing the power failure, according to Reuters.

“As a result of shelling [by Ukrainian forces], power to the Zasyadko mine in Donetsk was cut off, and 77 miners remain underground,” RIA said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and there was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.

As war rages in Ukraine’s east, Kyiv received a major boost on Friday when the European Union recommended that it become a candidate to join the bloc, foreshadowing a dramatic geopolitical shift in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

At a summit next week, EU leaders are expected to endorse the recommendations by the bloc's executive for Ukraine and neighbouring Moldova.

Mr Zelenskiy said on Twitter the bravery of Ukrainians had brought an opportunity for Europe to “create a new history of freedom, and finally remove the grey zone in eastern Europe between the EU and Russia”.

Mr Zelenskiy said in a nightly televised address that the decision of EU member states remains to be seen, but added: “You can only imagine truly powerful European strength, European independence and European development with Ukraine.”

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the decision while wearing the Ukrainian colours, represented by a yellow blazer over a blue blouse.

"Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective," she said. "We want them to live with us the European dream."

Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin again attacked the West, the United States in particular, in a grievance-filled speech in St Petersburg, but he sought to play down the EU issue.

"We have nothing against it," he said. "It is not a military bloc. It's the right of any country to join economic union."

Ukraine applied to join the EU four days after Russian troops poured across its border late in February. Within days it was joined by Moldova and Georgia, smaller former Soviet states also contending with separatist regions backed by Russia.

Although only the start of a process that may run for years and require extensive reforms, the move by the European Commission puts Kyiv on course to realise an aspiration which had been seen as out of reach just months ago.

[ EU membership may prove a mirage for Ukraine despite optimism of Kyiv visit ]

One of Putin’s stated objectives in launching what Moscow calls a “special military operation” that has killed thousands of people, destroyed cities and sent millions fleeing was to halt the West’s eastward expansion via the Nato military alliance.

But Friday’s announcement underlined how the war has had the opposite effect: convincing Finland and Sweden to join Nato, and now the EU to embark on potentially its most ambitious expansion since welcoming eastern European states after the Cold War.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the West not to “suggest peace initiatives with unacceptable terms”, in an apparent reference to remarks this month by French president Emmanuel Macron that finding a diplomatic solution requires not humiliating Russia.

Instead, Mr Kuleba wrote in an online article in the magazine Foreign Policy that the West should help Ukraine win, not just by providing heavy weapons but by maintaining and increasing sanctions against Moscow.

"The West cannot afford any sanctions fatigue, regardless of the broader economic costs," he wrote. "It is clear that Putin's path to the negotiating table lies solely through battleground defeats."

Since Ukraine defeated Russia’s bid to storm Kyiv in March, Moscow has refocused on the eastern Donbas region, which it claims on behalf of separatist proxies, and its forces have used their artillery advantage to blast their way into cities in a punishing phase of the war.

However, Russia’s military is “suffering heavy casualties” after concentrating the vast majority of its available combat power to capture Severodonetsk and its sister city, Lysychansk, at the expense of other axes of advance, Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said on Friday. — Reuters/PA

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