02 June,2023 08:09 AM IST | Bulboaca | Agencies
Moldova’s President Maia Sandu, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the European Political Community Summit at the Mimi Castle in Bulboaca Thursday. Pic/AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived at a sprawling summit of some 50 European leaders in Moldova on Thursday, becoming the focal point of an event that seeks to quell regional conflicts and shore up unity in the face of Russia's war.
The meeting of the European Political Community, a gathering of heads of state and government from 47 countries, brings together leaders from European Union nations and others to the 27-member bloc's south and east - a region pushed to a turning point in its relationship with Moscow by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.
The EU, represented at the summit by the bloc's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, wants to use the summit to reach out to many Eastern European countries that spent decades within the Soviet Union or under its sphere of influence, and to bolster the continent's unified response to Russian aggression.
The choice to hold the summit in Moldova, a former Soviet republic of around 2.6 million people, is seen as a message to the Kremlin from the EU and the Moldovan government, which received EU candidate status in June of last year at the same time as Ukraine.
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Russia launched yet another aerial bombardment of Kyiv on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding others. Following a reported 17 drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital in May, Russian forces hit the capital with ground-launched missiles. The Kyiv City Administration reported one child died and 10 people were wounded.
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