• 5:01 a.m .: Volodymyr Zelensky expects “a positive result” at the next EU summit regarding Ukraine’s EU membership

President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed Brussels' support for Ukraine's EU candidate status in his video address on Friday evening as "positive news" for the country as the key city of Severodonetsk in the East, is pounded by Russian forces.

The European Commission on Friday recommended granting Ukraine EU candidate status.

His opinion will be discussed next Thursday and Friday at a European summit, where the 27 EU leaders will have to give the green light – unanimously – for kyiv to officially obtain this status. 

For Volodymyr Zelensky, who “expects a positive result” at this summit, “this is the first step on the road to EU membership. Ukraine “deserves this positive news”, estimated the Ukrainian president, hailing a "historic success of all those who work for our State". "Our rapprochement with the European Union is not only positive for us.

This is the biggest contribution to the future of Europe for many years,” he added.

  • 4:11 a.m.: Russian state TV broadcasts videos of two Americans missing in Ukraine

A Russian state television channel posted videos on social media of two Americans who went missing last week while fighting alongside the Ukrainian military, saying they had been captured by Russian forces.

United States President Joe Biden said earlier on Friday that he did not know the whereabouts of Alexander Drueke and Andy Huynh, two US military veterans whose relatives have lost contact.

The missing Americans – including a third identified as a former Marine captain – are believed to be among an unknown number of mostly military veterans who joined other foreigners to volunteer alongside Ukrainian troops .

  • 8:35 p.m .: Kazakhstan says it does not recognize the separatist republics of Donbass

The President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, recalled that his country did not recognize the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, territories in eastern Ukraine under Russian control.

“If the right to self-determination were effectively applied to the whole planet, then there would not be 193 States within the UN, but more than 500 or 600. It would be chaos”, a- he told the Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

"For this reason, we do not recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Obviously, this principle will also be applied to the 'quasi-state' territories which we believe are Luhansk and Donetsk," he explained in the presence of Vladimir Putin.

Remaining close to Moscow, Kazakhstan nevertheless intends to distance itself subtly from its neighbor since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

With AFP

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