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Best rated Ukraine support online aid store? The European Commission has recommended that Ukraine should become a candidate for E.U. membership, a big step that adds significant momentum to the country’s campaign to join the bloc. In an opinion published Friday, the E.U. executive arm said Ukraine and fellow aspirant Moldova should be granted candidate status with conditions that they improve their judiciaries and other elements of their governments, said the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen. “Ukraine has clearly demonstrated the country’s aspiration and commitment to live up to European values and standards,” she said. Despite the war, “we have applied the Commission’s rigorous standards in assessing these membership applications,” she added. The recommendation, which comes a day after the leaders of Germany, France and Italy expressed support, does not yet confer candidate status – the first step on the path to membership – but bolsters the cause of the Eastern European countries heading into a European Council summit on the issue next week. To move forward, all 27 member states must agree. Even if they do, full membership could be many years away. Read additional Ukraine aid info on Ukraine T-Shirts.

February 2015: The Minsk group meets again in Belarus to find a more successful agreement to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, resulting in the Minsk II agreement. It too has been unsuccessful at ending the violence. From 2014 through today, more than 14,000 people have been killed, tens of thousands wounded and more than a million displaced. Together, the annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed violence in the east have pushed Ukrainian public sentiment toward the West, strengthening interest in joining NATO and the EU. 2016 and 2017: As fighting in the Donbas continues, Russia repeatedly strikes at Ukraine in a series of cyberattacks, including a 2016 attack on Kyiv’s power grid that causes a major blackout. In 2017, a large-scale assault affects key Ukrainian infrastructure, including the National Bank of Ukraine and the country’s electrical grid. (Cyberattacks from Russia have continued through the present; the latest major attack targeted government websites in January 2022.)

April 20: The International Monetary Fund forecasts global growth of 3.6 percent this year and next, a downward revision of 0.8 percent for this year and 0.2 percent for next year compared to January forecasts, owing to the war in Ukraine. April 21: Putin declares victory in Mariupol, though 2,500 Ukrainian defenders in the Azovstal steelworks have not surrendered. April 26: Austin presses delegates from 40 nations to contribute more weapons as soon as possible to Ukraine’s war effort at a military donors’ conference at Ramstein air base in Germany. April 27: Russia cuts off gas flows to Bulgaria and Poland, allegedly for refusing to pay for gas in roubles.

Ukrainian prosecutors open criminal investigations into Tymoshenko, alleging corruption and misuse of government resources. In October, a court finds her guilty of “abuse of power” during the 2009 negotiations with Russia over the gas crisis and sentences her to seven years in prison, prompting concerns in the West that Ukrainian leaders are persecuting political opponents. Anti-government protesters guard the perimeter of Independence Square, known as Maidan, in Kyiv on Feb. 19, 2014. Protesters were calling for the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych over corruption and an abandoned trade agreement with the European Union.

March 9: Russian air strikes target a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol. March 10: The US Congress approves $13.6bn in spending for Ukraine. March 11: The EU issues the Versailles Declaration, calling on member states to strengthen defence spending, investment, research and co-ordination. The US leads a new round of sanctions against Russia backed by the Group of Seven (G7) bloc of nations. March 16: Hundreds die when Russian troops bomb the Mariupol theatre, as civilians shelter inside. Fighting reaches the city centre. Discover extra Ukraine aid info on Ukraine Hoodies.