Ukraine – The defense ministers from the European Union reached an agreement on the creation of a military assistance mission for Ukraine, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said on Tuesday. „It is not just about the war, but also about the way it is being waged, about the training of the military”, he declared after an informal meeting in Prague. On the ground, the Ukrainian army launched a vigorous counter-offensive against the invading Russian troops in the country’s occupied south. The Ukrainian counterattack is mainly aimed at retaking control of Kherson, a city of 280,000 inhabitants before the war started, which fell in the Russian hands at the start of the invasion on February 24. „Today there have been strong artillery attacks on enemy positions (…) throughout the territory of the occupied Kherson region. This is the announcement we’ve been waiting for since spring. It is the beginning of the end of the occupation in the Kherson region” – deputy Serghei Klan announced on the Ukrainian television. The Ukrainian military are already talking about the withdrawal of a unit of pro-Russian separatist fighters from the region. On the other hand, Russia claims that it rejected the attempts of the Ukrainians to advance into the regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv, also in the south.
EU – Germany and France reject, in a joint position paper, the proposal of some member countries to ban entry into the European Union for all Russian citizens, dpa reports. Even if it accepts that visa applications made by Russian citizens should be examined carefully for potential security risks, the document warns against underestimating „the transformative power of experiencing life in democratic systems first-hand.” A general ban could lead to the amplification of the nationalist and anti-European sentiment in Russia, the French-German paper also states. Romania will support the suspension of the Agreement with Russia to facilitate the granting of visas, which is one of the topics of the meeting of the European foreign ministers that began on Tuesday in Prague. The Romanian Foreign Minister, Bogdan Aurescu, will plead for restricting the movement of Russian citizens in the community space, even for tourist purposes. The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating six-month presidency of the Union, hopes for a consensus of the 27 member states to implement this measure, requested by Finland and supported by the Baltic countries, by October.
