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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for fast-track membership of the European Union for his embattled country as it fights a Russian invasion.
But senior EU figures showed little enthusiasm for speeding up a process that typically takes many years and requires countries to meet the bloc’s exacting standards on issues such as corruption, pollution and the rule of law.
It came on the fifth day of a war in Ukraine which the UN said had already killed at least 102 civilians and prompted half a million people to flee their homes. Ceasefire talks began at the border with Belarus but fighting continued elsewhere, with Ukraine still in control of major cities.
Pressure from a defiant Mr Zelenskyy in Kiev has already helped to push European leaders to open their weapons stores and impose sanctions that caused havoc in the Russian economy on Monday.
Even Switzerland, known for its non-alignment and opaque banking system, announced on Monday that it would adopt the EU’s sanctions on Russia in full, including asset freezes on President Vladimir Putin and figures in his inner circle.
Top Swiss officials decided that preserving the integrity of the country's famed financial sector was more important than the small amount of Russian business they said was conducted in Switzerland.
“Playing into the hands of an aggressor is not neutral,” Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said as he explained the rare move, which was welcomed by senior ministers in the EU.
French President Emmanuel Macron tried to keep diplomatic efforts alive by speaking to both Mr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. EU energy ministers meeting on Monday were meanwhile urged to support an emergency link between Ukraine’s power grid and that of its neighbours to the west.
But demanding to be on an equal footing with EU countries, Mr Zelenskyy called on Monday for the “immediate accession of Ukraine via a new special procedure”. He said he had signed an official request to join the bloc.
“I am sure we deserve this,” he said from the presidential palace in Kiev. “I am sure that all this is possible.”
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A monitor displays a projectile striking the regional state administration building in Kharkiv, as the Russian invasion continues. Reuters -
People help a wounded woman in the aftermath of Russian shelling in Kharkiv. EPA -
Ukrainian emergency service personnel carry the body of a victim following shelling in Kharkiv. AP -
Students who fled the conflict rest in a refugee camp in Voluntari, Romania. AP -
Members of an Ukrainian civil defence unit pass new assault rifles to the opposite side of a blown-up bridge on Kiev’s northern front. AFP -
Civilians cross a river on Kiev's northern front. AFP -
A woman takes photos of a destroyed accommodation building near a checkpoint in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP -
The city hall of Kharkiv, damaged by Russian shelling. AFP -
Debris litters the square outside the damaged Kharkiv city hall. AFP -
A Ukrainian woman sleeps on the floor of the railway station in Zahonyi close to the Hungary/Ukraine border. AFP -
A medical worker attends to wounded man at a hospital in Brovary, outside Kiev. AP -
Refugees from Ukraine in a tent at the Medyka border crossing, Poland. AP -
Debris outside the regional administration building, which city officials said was hit by a missile, in Kharkiv. Reuters -
A student evacuated from Ukraine is embraced by her family after arriving at Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. AFP -
Rescuers in a building damaged by a missile in central Kharkiv. Reuters -
An ambulance is visible through the damaged window of a vehicle hit by bullets in Kiev, Ukraine. Reuters -
Territorial defence members prepare to head out on patrol in Kiev. EPA -
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech on screen during the opening of the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. AP -
A policeman detains a young demonstrator during a protest against Russia's attack on Ukraine in St Petersburg, Russia. AP -
Local residents in Zhytomyr, Ukraine, prepare Molotov cocktails. Reuters -
Residents clean a bomb shelter under an out-of-service cinema in central Zhytomyr. Reuters -
Ukrainian volunteers tear cloth into strips to make camouflage nets in Lviv, western Ukraine. AP -
Part of the military convoy north-west of Invankiv, Ukraine. AP -
Mark Goncharuk, a young boy from Kiev, leaves his father behind as he travels with the rest of his family towards the border. Reuters -
People hold an anti-war protest outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, Mexico. Reuters -
A crater caused by shelling on the outskirts of Kiev. AFP -
People queue outside a grocery store in the Ukrainian capital. EPA -
Ukrainian soldiers stand at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square, in Kiev. EPA -
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, second left, and Davyd Arakhamia, faction leader of the Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian Parliament, third right, attend the peace talks in the Gomel region of Belarus. AP -
People who have fled the Russian invasion in Ukraine, clamour to board a bus bound for a refugee centre established in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Hanna Pavlovna Lukasz, from Mirhord, Ukraine, said her sons, aged 12 and 8, and her 66-year-old mother had been waiting on the Ukrainian side of the border crossing with Medyka, Poland, for four days. AP -
A volunteer from Kiev prepares a rear post with trenches in the city. AFP -
A child being treated for cancer rests in the bomb shelter of the oncology ward at a hospital in Kiev. Getty -
Police officers check occupants of a suspicious car in Kiev, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters -
A woman from Ukraine uses a phone to listen to a speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a refugee shelter in Beregsurany, Hungary. Reuters -
Shelves empty of bread after a curfew was lifted as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in Kiev. Reuters -
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, left, and President Zelenskyy. AFP -
Snow-covered shoes donated for those fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland. Reuters -
People who have fled Ukraine wait for a bus to transport them away from the border crossing in Medyka. Reuters -
Norwegian soldiers of the Nato-enhanced forward presence battalion pose at a military plane as they arrive at an airport in Kaunas, Lithuania. AP -
A person fleeing Ukraine sits during snowfall at a temporary camp in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Footage reportedly of Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road before a drone strike near Malyn, Ukraine. Reuters -
An explosion after what are said to be Russian Buk missile system vehicles on a road are struck by a drone. Reuters -
The monument to Russian troops from the Second World War, after the figures’ hands were painted red, at the Red Army memorial in Sofia, Bulgaria. EPA -
The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, is lit up with the colours of Ukraine’s national flag in a show of support. AP -
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the construction site of the National Space Agency on the premises of the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, in Moscow. EPA -
A man looks out from a train, at the railway station in Lviv, Ukraine. The UN has estimated the conflict could produce as many as four million refugees. AP -
A Ukrainian boy waits for his mother after passing the border crossing point in Siret, northern Romania. EPA -
Russian policemen detain a demonstrator in St Petersburg, during a protest against the country's military actions in Ukraine. EPA -
Ukrainian soldiers at a check point in the city of Zhytomyr. Reuters -
Residents prepare petrol bombs to defend the city, in Uzhhorod, Ukraine. Reuters -
A pro-Russian fighter sits inside a tank in the separatist self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. Reuters -
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, speaks to Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, second left, and Head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and First Deputy Defence Minister Valery Gerasimov, left, during their meeting in Moscow. AP -
Ukrainians and supporters gather during a demonstration in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens against the Russian military's operation in Ukraine. AFP -
Ukrainian Territorial Defence fighters test an automatic grenade launcher taken from a destroyed Russian infantry mobility vehicla after a battle in Kharkiv. AFP
Long road to membership
EU membership applications require long negotiations on more than 30 policy areas, and Ukraine does not yet have the status of a candidate country. The last new member, Croatia, applied in 2003 and joined in 2013.
Any accession requires the unanimous approval of all 27 existing EU members as well as backing from the European Commission and the European Parliament.
Poland has openly backed an “express path” for Ukraine, but although EU leaders in Brussels have spoken of deepening ties with Kiev, they have shown no sign they are willing to tear up the rulebook for membership.
“Today it is not on the agenda, believe me,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in Brussels on Monday. “We have to provide an answer for the coming hours, not for the coming years.”
Ireland and Germany said accession was not something that could happen in a couple of months, while Eric Mamer, a spokesman for the European Commission, said Ukraine was a country with a “European perspective” but that the process for membership still stood.
Also unwilling to send troops to Ukraine, European countries have instead sought to show support by exporting weapons, providing financial aid and rallying the West to agree sweeping sanctions on Russia.
Military gear being exported to Ukraine includes protective equipment from Sweden and Finland as well as howitzers from the former East Germany, now in Estonia’s possession, which Berlin has granted its approval to export.
It was part of a historic shift in German defence policy that took many observers by surprise and will see 100 billion euros ($112bn) spent on upgrading the military and tough sanctions imposed on Russia after years of equivocation towards the Kremlin.
Sanctions kick in
Europe’s financial markets began severing Russia from their systems on Monday, while the rouble took a battering on currency exchanges. Russia’s central bank, which had some of its own assets frozen, raised its interest rate to 20 per cent in response.
Mr Borrell said sanctions would come with a cost to Europe and were "not a free lunch" as energy ministers discussed how to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian gas imports.
Robert Habeck, Germany's Economy Minister, acknowledged the country had been too dependent on Russian gas in the past and had a "duty to free ourselves" from that reliance.
A spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said companies with interests in Russia should think carefully about whether to continue doing business there, after energy giant BP announced it was ending a shareholding in Russian oil company Rosneft.
France said it was preparing what it called a census of luxury assets, including property, yachts and vehicles, belonging to Russian oligarchs who could face sanctions owing to links with the Kremlin.
Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the economic reality had changed but that Russia could withstand western sanctions.
Many countries have closed their airspace to Russian planes, effectively blocking them from Europe. Russia retaliated with a ban on planes from 36 countries, including Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy and Canada, using its airspace.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of those sanctioned by the EU, had to cancel a trip to the United Nations in Geneva, in landlocked Switzerland, after the flight bans took effect.
Switzerland imposed its own sanctions on Russia after the European Commission called on the Alpine country to “live up to the moment that we are all living through”. Five Russian oligarchs with business interests in Switzerland will be banned from entering the country.
Swiss finance chief Ueli Maurer said Russian money accounted for only one per cent of direct investment in Switzerland and that there was no formal business between the two central banks.
Mr Cassis said the aim of the sanctions was to prompt a rethink from Russia on its intervention in Ukraine. Switzerland has said it is willing to mediate in the dispute.
