French President Emmanuel Macron has today criticised the “barbarism” of the attacks that decimated Kyviv town while on a tour with German, Italian, and Romanian leaders.
Macron said that there are signs of war crimes in a Kyiv suburb following “massacres” by Russian forces.
His visit to Kyviv was to show solidarity for Ukraine, and hailed the fortitude of citizens of Irpin and other Kyiv region towns who fought back Russian soldiers from storming the city.
The four European leaders arrived in Kyiv earlier to the sound of air raid sirens, in a high-profile show of European solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they fight Russia’s invasion.
The visit, which includes a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, carries a lot of symbolic weight because the three Western European powers have been chastised for not delivering Ukraine with the weapons that Zelenskyy has requested.
They have also been chastised for not paying a visit to Kyiv sooner. Several other European leaders have made the long journey overland in recent weeks and months to demonstrate solidarity with a nation under siege, even when the conflict was closer to the capital than it is now.
Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Premier Mario Draghi, who represent Europe’s three largest economies, travelled to Kyiv together on a special overnight train supplied by Ukrainian officials, according to Macron’s office.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, whose country borders Ukraine and has been a major destination for Ukrainian migrants, arrived on a different train, tweeting, “This illegitimate Russian attack must end!”
“It’s a message of European unity for the Ukrainian people, support now and in the future, because the weeks to come will be very difficult,” Macron said.
In the eastern Donbas region, Russian soldiers are pressing their attack, slowly but surely gaining ground on the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian forces, who are asking for more armaments from Western partners.
While the European leaders were in their hotel preparing for the rest of their tour, several air raid sirens sounded, and Kyiv officials encouraged citizens to seek shelter. These kinds of notifications are common.
Scholz, Macron, and Draghi have been slammed for not just providing insufficient assistance but also for meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Many leaders and ordinary citizens in the Baltic and Central European countries that were under Moscow’s influence during the Cold War think that Putin only understands force, and have deemed Macron’s and others’ efforts to maintain contact with Putin following his invasion as inappropriate.
Ukrainians hoped that the visit would be a watershed moment, paving the path for major fresh arms shipments.
The visit takes place as EU leaders prepare to decide on Ukraine’s request to become a candidate for EU membership on June 23-24, and ahead of a key NATO meeting on June 29-30 in Madrid.
NATO defense ministers will gather in Brussels also today they were expected to discuss additional military aid for Ukraine. The US and Germany announced fresh aid on Wednesday, with the US and its allies providing longer-range weapons that they claim can make a difference in a struggle where Ukrainian soldiers are outmanned and outgunned by their Russian invaders.