KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russia pressed its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Sunday as Poland\u2019s president traveled to Kyiv to support the country\u2019s European Union aspirations, becoming the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the start of\u00a0the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawmakers stood to applaud President Andrzej Duda, who thanked them for the honor of speaking where \u201cthe heart of a free, independent and democratic Ukraine beats.\u201d Duda received more applause when he said that to end the conflict, Ukraine did not need to submit to conditions given by Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, in Europe there have also been disturbing voices in recent times demanding that Ukraine yield to Putin\u2019s demands,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to say clearly: Only Ukraine has the right to decide about its future. Only Ukraine has the right to decide for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duda\u2019s visit, his second to Kyiv since April, came as Russian and Ukrainian forces battled along a 551-kilometer (342-mile) wedge of the country\u2019s eastern industrial heartland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After declaring full control of a\u00a0sprawling seaside steel plant\u00a0that was the last defensive holdout in the port city of Mariupol, Russia launched artillery and missile attacks in the region, known as the Donbas, seeking to expand the territory that Moscow-backed separatists have held since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To bolster its defenses, Ukraine\u2019s parliament voted Sunday to extend martial law and the mobilization of armed forces for a third time, until Aug. 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stressed that the 27-member EU should expedite his country\u2019s request to join the bloc as soon as possible due to the invasion. Ukraine\u2019s potential candidacy is set to be discussed at a Brussels summit in late June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France\u2019s European Affairs minister Clement Beaune on Sunday told Radio J it would be a \u201clong time\u201d before Ukraine gains EU membership, estimating it could take up to two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have to be honest,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you say Ukraine is going to join the EU in six months, or a year or two, you\u2019re lying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Poland is ramping up efforts to win over other EU members who are more hesitant about accepting the war-ravaged country into the bloc. Zelenskyy said Duda\u2019s visit represented a \u201chistoric union\u201d between Ukraine, which declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and Poland, which ended communist rule two years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is really a historic opportunity not to lose such strong relations, built through blood, through Russian aggression,\u201d Zelenskyy said. \u201cAll this not to lose our state, not to lose our people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poland has\u00a0welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees\u00a0and become a gateway for Western humanitarian aid and weapons going into Ukraine. It is also a transit point into Ukraine for some foreign fighters, including from Belarus, who have\u00a0volunteered to fight\u00a0the Russian forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDespite the great destruction, despite the terrible crime and great suffering that the Ukrainian people suffered every day, the Russian invaders did not break you. They failed at it. And I believe deeply that they will never succeed,\u201d Duda told the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine\u2019s legislature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Duda also credited the U.S. and President Joe Biden for unifying the West in supporting Ukraine and imposing sanctions against Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKyiv is the place from which one clearly sees that we need more America in Europe, both in the military and in this economic dimension,\u201d said Duda, a right-wing populist leader who clearly preferred former President Donald Trump over Biden during the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the battlefield, Russia appeared to have made slow grinding moves forward in the Donbas in recent days. It intensified efforts to capture Sievierodonetsk, the main city under Ukrainian control in Luhansk province, which together with Donetsk province makes up the Donbas. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russian forces had mounted an unsuccessful attack on Oleksandrivka, a village outside of Sievierodonetsk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said the sole working hospital in the city has only three doctors and enough supplies for 10 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a general staff morning report, Russia also said it was preparing to resume its offensive toward Slovyansk, a city in Donetsk province that is critical to Russia\u2019s objective of capturing all of eastern Ukraine and saw fierce fighting last month after Moscow\u2019s troops backed away from Kyiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Enerhodar, a Russian-held city 281 kilometers (174 miles) northwest of Mariupol, an explosion Sunday injured the Moscow-appointed mayor at his residence, Ukrainian and Russian news agencies reported. Ukraine\u2019s Unian news agency said a bomb planted by \u201clocal partisans\u201d wounded 48-year-old Andrei Shevchuk, whose home is near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe\u2019s largest and employs many Enerhodar residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Russia claiming to have taken prisoner nearly 2,500\u00a0Ukrainian fighters\u00a0from the Mariupol steel plant, concerns grew about their fate and the future facing the remaining residents of the city, now in ruins with more than 20,000 feared dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relatives of the fighters have pleaded for them to be given rights as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday that Ukraine \u201cwill fight for the return\u201d of every one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The complete seizure of the Azovstal steel plant, a symbol of Ukrainian tenacity. gave Putin a badly wanted victory in the war he began nearly three months ago, on Feb. 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People\u2019s Republic, vowed that the Ukrainian fighters from the plant\u00a0would face tribunals. He said foreign nationals were among them, although he didn\u2019t provide details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ukraine\u2019s government has not commented on Russia\u2019s claim of capturing Azovstal. Ukraine\u2019s military had told the fighters their\u00a0mission was complete\u00a0and they could come out. It described their extraction as an evacuation, not a mass surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko warned that the city faced a health and sanitation \u201ccatastrophe\u201d from mass burials in shallow pits as well as the breakdown of sewage systems. An estimated 100,000 of the 450,000 people who lived in Mariupol before the war remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Russia controlling the city, Ukrainian authorities will likely face delays in documenting any alleged Russian atrocities there, including the bombings of a maternity hospital and\u00a0a theater where hundreds of civilians had taken cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian court was expected to reach a verdict Monday for a Russian soldier who was the\u00a0first to go on trial for an alleged war crime. The 21-year-old sergeant, who has admitted to shooting a Ukrainian man in the head in a village in the northeastern Sumy region Feb. 28, could get life in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has said her office was prosecuting war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting. Her office has said it was looking into more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects, including Russian soldiers and government officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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