ODESA, Ukraine — It was late in the day, nearly four months after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but when the leaders of the European Union’s three largest countries finally traveled to Kiev, their intent was clear: to clear any doubt that they would hesitate to support Ukraine’s quest for sovereignty, territorial integrity, freedom and membership in what Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany called “the European family.”
The reassurance, which seemed unvarnished by some pressure on Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow, was emphatic. The determination to quell any hint of reconciliation from the indiscriminate aggression of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, seemed paramount.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had been enraged when France’s President Emmanuel Macron last month insisted that it was important never “to give in to the temptation of humiliation,” saying the French president has no “way out for Russia.” In Kiev on Thursday, Macron turned his back and expressed his effusive support for the Ukrainian cause.
“We will do everything we can so that Ukraine can choose its destiny,” he said.
Still, the question remained how a war that has put the world economy under acute pressure, with soaring inflation and looming food shortages, could ever be ended. The fact that European leaders evaded any overt exhortation to Mr. Zelensky to negotiate with Mr. Putin almost certainly did not mean that they had given up their strong tendency to favor diplomacy and avert an escalation of the war at all costs.
In the short term, Europe and its leaders need peace to avoid a downward economic spiral. Rising energy prices make voters angry. But in the longer term, Europe needs affirmation of the values of freedom and peace that have served it well since 1945 and cemented by NATO and the European Union.
It was to this vision, and Ukraine’s share of it, that leaders committed to on Thursday.
“Today it is clear on Ukrainian soil that the security of the European continent as a whole is at stake,” Macron said. “Europe is by your side and will remain so for as long as it takes.”
This was a different tone from Mr Macron. Tensions had flared between Mr Zelensky and his French and German colleagues over issues such as the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine and the willingness of Mr Macron and Mr Scholz to keep diplomatic avenues open for Mr Putin.
Ahead of Thursday’s visit, Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, told the German daily Bild that he was concerned that European leaders would come to Kiev, saying “we must end the war that is causing food problems” and ” we need to save face of Putin.”
If there were any such thoughts – and the economic hardship caused by the war is mounting day by day for heavily pressured European leaders – they found no public expression. Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who accompanied the German and French leaders, said: “Today the main message of this visit is that Italy wants Ukraine to join the European Union.”
Understanding the war between Russia and Ukraine better
This process will take time, but the expression of support for Ukraine’s EU membership, echoed by Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis, the fourth member of the delegation, was the most unequivocal to date. It suggested that European leaders formalize Ukraine’s status as a candidate for accession to the union.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Ukraine should be alive!” Mr Scholz, using the Ukrainian expression of victory for Ukraine, said “Slava Ukraini.” For a leader who has been cautious in expressing support, it was a passionate statement.
“Germany cannot and will not be seen as the party that brought NATO to war,” said Uwe Jun, a political scientist at the University of Trier, explaining Mr Scholz’s carefully calibrated approach to Kiev over the past few months.
Ukraine’s belief that its future security and prosperity rests with Europe has for years been unbearable for Mr Putin, who believes that Ukraine’s fate – if indeed it will have one as a nation – is up to Russia to decide.
The brutality of the Russian invasion has only doubled Ukraine’s determination to look west, not east, to secure its development – one of the many ways the Russian leader’s reckless gamble has boosted the results , such as a galvanized NATO alliance that he had intended to undermine.
“Over the past two decades we have moved in opposite directions, Ukraine to civilization in the West, and Russia to the past, the Soviet past,” said Petro Obukhov, a member of Odessa’s city council who is leading a campaign to remove street names. associated with Russia, which founded the city during the reign of Catherine the Great. “We broke up.”
Several European leaders, as well as US secretaries of state and defense led Mr Macron and Mr Scholz to Kiev. The apparent reluctance of the future French and German leaders had increased skepticism in the Ukrainian capital about their intentions – especially since the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 accords brokered by Paris and Berlin in an attempt to end the Russian-initiated separatist war in the east of the country. Ukraine that started in 2014 had proved so ineffective.
The last thing Ukraine wants is what is sometimes derisively referred to as a “Minsk 3”, some of which have concocted a ceasefire on the basis of mutual concessions that are never implemented and that allow Mr Putin to keep Ukrainian territory with the ability to continue to use brute force the next time he chooses.
Russia expressed contempt for the visit. Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former president and now the deputy chairman of the Security Council, said: “European connoisseurs of frogs, liver and pasta like to visit Kiev. The benefits are zero.”
This crude taunt, from a Russian politician once seen as milder and pro-European than his master, Mr Putin, indicated how harsh the confrontation between Russia and the West has become and how elusive peace can prove to be. Earlier this week, Mr. Medvedev with smug disdain that Ukraine may not exist in two years.
In recent months, Macron has made much of the need to continue talking to Mr Putin’s Russia, a huge power that he sees will pose a threat to European stability until it is integrated into a new security architecture. This has caused unrest in Ukraine.
Referring to Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, Mr Macron said last month: “We are all well aware that the process of authorizing admission would take several years, and in fact undoubtedly several decades.”
While the trial is expected to take years, Thursday’s talk in Kiev was about acceleration, not the need for Ukrainian patience.
The Russian invasion was “premeditated, deliberate, unjustified and unjustifiable,” Macron said.
He announced that France would deliver six Caesar long-range self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, in addition to the 12 already delivered. The Caesars are valued for their accuracy.
The issue of arms supplies to Ukraine has plagued Mr Scholz and sparked an altercation in March in which German President Franz-Walter Steinmeier turned down the invitation to Ukraine. Tensions have since abated, but Mr Scholz continues to face pressure from some members of his Social Democratic Party to prevent him from sending too many heavy weapons.
The chancellor appeared visibly moved during a visit to the ruined Kiev suburb of Irpin. “It’s all the worse when you see how terribly senseless the violence is,” he said of what he called “the Russian war of aggression.”
Whether the experience would change German policy was unclear. But it seems unlikely that tensions between Germany and Ukraine over the level of German support will ever be completely resolved. Germany’s post-war embrace of freedom is matched only by its war horror.
A solution to the crisis that has left millions of tons of Ukrainian grain rotting in silos on the Black Sea coast also seemed a long way off. Mr Macron brought up the issue, blaming the “global food crisis” on “Russian aggression”. Russia, of course, blames Ukraine, another example of the hardening of the conflict.
Reporting was contributed by Andrew E. Kramer from Kiev, Erika Sommer from Berlin, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, and Jason Horowitz and Gaia Pianigiani from Rome.