Volodymyr Zelensky is increasing his trips to European leaders this week. Thursday October 10, he will be received in Paris at 3 p.m. by President Emmanuel Macron, according to information from the Elysée press service. He is then expected on Friday at the Vatican, where he will meet the Pope, then in Berlin, where he will be received by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president also went to Croatia for a third Ukraine-Eastern Europe summit bringing together the heads of state, government or diplomacy of thirteen countries, intended to show “the region’s support for Ukrainian people. In particular, he called for the rapid integration of “democratic countries” in the region into the European Union.
These trips come at a difficult time for Ukraine more than two and a half years after the Russian invasion. At the same time, fighting continues against Russia. The latter claimed on Wednesday the recapture from the Ukrainians of two villages in the Russian border region of Kursk, where kyiv forces rushed in at the beginning of August, occupying hundreds of km2 and dozens of localities.
Information to remember
⇒ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received by Macron on Thursday
⇒ Friday, Zelensky will also visit the Vatican and then Berlin
⇒ Russia claims the recapture of villages in the Kursk region
Macron receives Zelensy on Thursday in Paris
According to information from the Elysée press service, Emmanuel Macron will welcome the Ukrainian president on Thursday at 3 p.m. This fifth visit by Volodymyr Zelensky to Paris “will be an opportunity for the President of the French Republic to reaffirm France’s determination to continue to provide, over the long term and with all of its partners, unfailing support to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people”, indicates the Elysée.
Macron with Ukrainian soldiers trained in France
This meeting comes after Emmanuel Macron spoke on Wednesday with Ukrainian soldiers who are training in eastern France in conditions close to those of the Ukrainian front. The head of state announced in June the training and complete equipment of a Ukrainian brigade.
“The Anne brigade of kyiv will be trained and equipped thanks to the solidarity of France,” he wrote on X upon his arrival in a “military camp in the Grand Est” whose location remains confidential for security reasons. French Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu and Ukrainian Minister of Defense Roustem Oumerov were also present on the site.
The French Army has started to train and train 2,300 soldiers from the Ukrainian combined arms brigade 155. It will equip it with 128 forward armored vehicles (VAB), 18 Caesar cannons, “more than 18” AMX-10s, 20 Milan anti-tank missile posts and 10 large TRM 10,000 military trucks designed for missions support in difficult terrain. In total, it has already trained more than 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers in various fields (infantry combat, artillery, maintenance of transferred equipment, health, etc.).
In Croatia, Zelensky pleads for the integration of “democracies” from the southeast into the EU
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded Wednesday for the European Union to welcome “all democratic nations of Europe”, at the opening of a Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit organized by Croatia and intended to show “the regional support for the Ukrainian people. “If Europe is not united today, it will not be at peace. The accession processes must therefore be completed,” declared the Ukrainian president, pleading not only for the cause of kyiv – which began accession negotiations in June, but also for that of several Balkan countries which have been waiting for years to join the EU.
Represented at this summit are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey. Volodymyr Zelensky added that “no one in Europe needs to be reminded how important stability is for the Balkans.” During his trip, Volodymyr Zelensky also signed a cooperation agreement with Croatia on defense and on the reconstruction of the country, among other things.
The Ukrainian president at the Vatican then in Berlin on Friday
After Dubrovnik, Volodymyr Zelensky is expected in Rome on Friday, where he will be received by the Pope at the Apostolic Palace from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. local time, according to a brief press release from the Vatican.
He must immediately go to Berlin, where he will be received by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. This interview comes after the postponement of a meeting on the defense of Ukraine which was scheduled for Saturday at the American base of Ramstein in Germany, after President Joe Biden postponed his visit due to Hurricane Milton.
Germany is, after the United States, the second largest contributor to financing arms deliveries to Ukraine, but the country plans to halve its budgetary contribution next year to reduce public spending. Volodymyr Zelensky, who makes every trip a platform to ask for more aid against Russia, recently regretted that the West was “dragging” arms deliveries for his country.
In Kursk, Russia takes back two villages from the Ukrainians
Moscow’s troops said on Wednesday that they had “continued to carry out offensive operations, during which they liberated the localities of Novaya Sorochina and Pokrovsky” in the Kursk region, partly occupied by Ukrainian soldiers, according to press agencies. Russians. In a video broadcast on the Russian army’s Telegram channel and presented as showing a recaptured village in the Kursk region from a drone, we see completely razed houses along a deserted road.
The Ukrainian army, in difficulty facing Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine, launched a large-scale attack in the Kursk region on August 6, the largest offensive on Russian territory since the end of the Second World War. worldwide. In total, according to the Russian military, 14 villages, including Novaya Sorotchina and Pokrovsky, were recaptured from the Ukrainians, out of the hundred over which kyiv said it had control. But kyiv controls hundreds of km2 of Russian territory.