Top European Union officials were due to meet Friday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a show of support for the country as it battles to counter Russia's invasion and strives to join the EU as well as NATO.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, as well as 15 European commissioners, travelled to the Ukrainian capital for what they described as a summit meeting.The last such summit was held in Kyiv in October 2021 -- a few months before the war started. The highly symbolic visit is also the first EU political mission of its kind to a country at war.
The EU is providing Ukraine with financial and humanitarian aid, among other things. It also plans to adopt a 10th package of sanctions again Russia in the coming weeks. Those programs were due to be discussed in Friday's meeting, which will also address one of the main obstacles to Ukraine's EU membership: endemic corruption.
Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform in a country long gripped by graft.
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