AP :
Four European leaders made a high-profile visit to show their support for Ukraine on Thursday, denouncing the brutality of the Russian invasion as they surveyed the ruins of a Kyiv suburb that was the scene of intense fighting early in the war and where many civilians were killed.
After arriving in Kyiv to the sound of air raid sirens, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania headed to Irpin, which was seized and briefly held by Russian troops along with other areas near the capital. Mass graves have been unearthed in the area, most notably in Bucha, and French President Emmanuel Macron decried the massacres and said there were signs of war crimes.
He denounced the “barbarism” of the attacks that devastated Irpin, and praised the courage of its residents and others in the region who helped thwart Russia’s attempt to overrun the capital.
The visit, which included a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, carries heavy symbolic weight since the three Western European powers have faced criticism for continuing to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin – and failing to provide Ukraine with the scale of weaponry that it has said is necessary to fend off the Russians.
Western arms were key to Ukraine’s surprising success in preventing the Russians from taking the capital – but officials have said
much more will be needed if they are to drive Moscow’s forces out.
The leaders have also been criticized for not visiting Kyiv sooner. A number of other European leaders have already made the long trip overland to show solidarity with a nation under attack, even in times when the fighting raged closer to the capital than it does now.
On Thursday, NATO defense ministers met in Brussels to consider more military aid for Ukraine, and many hoped in Ukraine that the leaders’ visit could mark a turning point by opening the way to significant new arms supplies – particularly as the officials surveyed the war’s devastation.
Ahead of the meeting with Zelenskyy, the leader German Chancellor Olaf Scholz observed that officials must keep the destruction in mind in all their decisions.
“Innocent civilians have been hit, houses have been destroyed; a whole town has been destroyed in which there was no military infrastructure at all,” Scholz said. “And that says a great deal about the brutality of the Russian war of aggression, which is simply out for destruction and conquest. We must bear that in mind in everything that we decide.”
Italian Premier Mario Draghi said during the tour of Irpin that Ukraine’s backers will rebuild “everything” with European help.
“They destroyed the nurseries, the playgrounds, and everything will be rebuilt,” Draghi said.
