EU president Charles Michel visits Kyiv as Ukraine marks decade since pro-West revolution

KYIV - European Council president Charles Michel arrived in Kyiv on Nov 21 in a gesture of support as Ukraine marks 10 years since the start of mass protests that toppled a Moscow-backed president and set Kyiv on a resolute pro-Western course.

Mr Michel’s visit to the Ukrainian capital 21 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion comes weeks before Kyiv hopes the European Union’s leaders will agree to launch the long process of

formal negotiations for it to join the bloc.

“Good to be back in Kyiv – among friends,” Mr Michel wrote on social media platform X, posting a picture of himself shaking hands with the EU’s ambassador to Ukraine, Ms Katarina Mathernova, at Kyiv’s railway station.

Ms Maia Sandu, the President of Moldova, which is also hoping to secure the start of her country’s formal accession talks to the EU in December, travelled to Kyiv and met President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ms Sandu posted a video of Mr Zelensky and his wife Olena joining her in paying their respects to the scores of protesters – known in Ukraine as the “Heavenly Hundred” who lost their lives during the revolution of 2014.

Ukraine, which gained independence from Soviet Moscow in 1991, marks a Day of Dignity on Nov 21 to commemorate its two pro-Western and pro-democracy revolutions, in 2004 and 2014.

Mr Zelensky published a video address to the nation, in which he said Kyiv’s aspirations to join the EU had been a “romantic dream” two decades ago, but had now become a “reality”.

“Therefore, our candidate status and further accession negotiations should certainly result in Ukraine’s full membership in the EU,” he said. “And we are doing all this despite the war. When our people are defending themselves and Europe right now.”

A senior EU official told Reuters last week that the formal launch of talks in December could be “at risk”, sounding a downbeat note at a time when attention has shifted to the conflict in Gaza.

The 2014 revolution, which the Kremlin casts as a foreign-sponsored coup, prompted Russian troops to seize and annex Crimea and back a militant insurrection in the east. REUTERS