(CN) — The leaders of Germany, France and Italy – the European Union’s most powerful nations – arrived in Kyiv by train Thursday with the goal of showing their support for Ukraine while discussing how to end the war.
The trip by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi came amid worsening front-line conditions for Ukraine as it desperately tries to repel Russia and maintain the West’s continued support.
“It’s an important moment. It’s a message of unity we’re sending to the Ukrainians, of support, to talk both about the present and the future, since the coming weeks, as we know, will be very difficult,” Macron said.
In Kyiv, the European leaders said they backed offering Ukraine the chance to become an EU member, a process that would likely take years but would put the war-torn country on a path toward the West and out of Russia’s sphere of influence. EU leaders are expected to consider offering Ukraine so-called “candidate status” at a summit next week.
On the front lines, meanwhile, the war continued to rage on Thursday with a top Ukrainian official saying the number of Ukrainian soldiers getting killed and wounded each day has now reached 1,000. In recent days, the estimate of Ukrainian casualties has steadily increased.
The most intense fighting is taking place in the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, which is nearly completely under Russian control. But there were reports of small advances by Russian troops at other parts of the front lines too. Reportedly, two Americans fighting alongside Ukrainian troops were also captured.
The European leaders were joined in Kyiv by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and they visited Irpin, a Kyiv suburb where Russian forces allegedly committed atrocities.
“It is even worse when you see how terribly senseless the violence is that we are seeing here,” Scholz said in Irpin.
He said the town has become, along with Bucha, another suburb of Kyiv, “a symbol of the unimaginable cruelty of the Russian war, of senseless violence.”
“The brutal destruction in this city is a memorial – this war must come to an end,” the German chancellor said in a tweet.
Scholz told reporters traveling with him to Kyiv that the European leaders wanted to “assure that the help that we’re organizing – financial, humanitarian, but also, when it comes to weapons – will continue.”
The German chancellor has been criticized by Kyiv for hesitating over the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine though he has changed his posture in recent weeks. Earlier this month he said Germany would provide Ukraine with advanced missiles fired by airplane – its IRIS-T missiles – and air defense tanks in July.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said he hoped the high-level diplomatic trip was not only about assuring Kyiv receives more arms. Sending more weapons, he said, would be “absolutely useless and will cause further damage to the country.”
The visit came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new $1 billion military package for Ukraine that includes 18 additional howitzers, 36,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition for the howitzers and two Harpoon coastal defense systems.
Peskov said the leaders of France, Germany and Italy should “not be focused exclusively on weapons shipments to Ukraine.” He said they and Zelenskyy need to take a “realistic look at the state of affairs” on the ground in Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and vice chairman of Russia's Security Council, disparagingly called the three leaders “fans of frogs, liverwurst and pasta” and said their trip was of “zero use.”
“Promised EU membership and old howitzers to Ukraine … won’t bring Ukraine closer to peace,” Medvedev said on Twitter. “The clock’s ticking.”
However, behind the scenes and rhetoric about increasing aid to Ukraine, the trip could serve as a turning point for diplomatic efforts to stop a war that’s caused global instability. Conversely, the trip may end up solidifying the West’s resolve to arm Ukraine with heavier weapons to help it defeat Russia.
With Russian forces continuing to advance and Ukraine suffering devastating losses on the front lines, it remains hard to see how the war will end any time soon. The Kremlin may believe it can seize much more of Ukraine, including even the capital Kyiv, and crush Ukraine militarily.
Until now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed that Ukraine will defeat Russia and push its forces out of Ukraine, a position backed by the United States and other Western powers.
Geopolitics expert Lucio Caracciolo wrote in La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, that European powers will not have much sway in ending the war.
“The end of this phase of the war will not be decided by the Europeans on one side or the other. That can only happen through direct dialogue between the U.S. and Russia,” he wrote. “So far one can only detect a certain war-weariness on the American side, and an equally clear presumption on Russia's part that it could penetrate far beyond Donbas.”
He added: “One thing is certain: this conflict is so deeply entrenched that at any moment it could spiral out of control. It is painful to think that there is little we can do about it. And even more painful if we think we're in control of the game.”
Russian forces now occupy about 20% of Ukraine, including those territories that fell under Moscow’s control in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and backed armed rebellions in Donbas.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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