European Union leaders have said they will make long-term commitments to strengthening Ukraine’s security, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on them to begin work on a new round of sanctions against Moscow. In Russia, the Kremlin is keeping quiet about the whereabouts of General Serhiy Surovikin after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, and the Wagner PMCs will no longer be sent to fight in Ukraine because their chief refused to sign a contract with the ministry headed by Serhiy Shoigu.

Ukrainian War: Day 492 LIVETEXT:

07:37 EU leaders said at a summit in Brussels that the EU and its member states are “ready” to help fulfill commitments that will help Ukraine protect itself in the long term. In a text summarizing the conclusions of the summit, European leaders say they will quickly review the shape of these commitment will be taken.

Josep Borrell, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, suggested they could rely on existing EU support, such as the European Peace Fund, which has financed billions of euros in arms for Ukraine and a training mission for Ukrainian troops.

“Military support for Ukraine should be long-term,” Borrell told reporters, suggesting that the EU could create a Ukrainian defense fund modeled after the Peace Fund.

07:10 NATO must have a plan for Ukraine’s accession in order to maintain its authority, experts believe. The success of the summit will depend on whether the Allies find a way to make progress in handing over to Ukraine the conditions it must meet and the timetable for accession.

06:58The Russian Embassy wants to know that Sergei and Yulia Skripal are “safe”. The Russian embassy said that there is still “no news” about Skripal and that its citizens “are not forgotten.”

00:35Members of the Western military alliance have reached a preliminary agreement to ask General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg to stay on for another year, a US official said, quoted by the AP news agency.

A brief summary of recent events:

• Zelensky says he will go to the NATO summit only if the leaders show “courage”. Ukraine insists on an invitation to start the process of joining NATO at the summit of the Western military alliance next month.
• Vladimir Putin has been “weakened” by the uprising of Wagner’s mercenary group, making him “more dangerous”, European foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday.
• The EU states, which take a neutral position, oppose providing Ukraine with categorical security guarantees, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Thursday.
• Evgeny Prigozhin and Oleksandr Lukashenko are not allies and can betray each other “at any moment”, said the leader of the Belarusian opposition in exile, Svitlana Tikhanovska.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense said that two generals and about 50 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday.
• Former US Vice President Mike Pence visited Ukraine on Thursday as a sign of Kiev’s support in the war against Russia, in the context of which the Republican candidates for the presidency of the United States have different positions on America’s role in it. war
• Shocking video captured Wagner’s mercenaries shooting down a Russian Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter during Saturday’s military coup.
• The most important generals of Russia disappeared from the public space after a one-day uprising by mercenaries of the Wagner group with the aim of overthrowing the Russian military leadership. A video call made Saturday by General Surovikin asking Wagner’s mercenaries to end the rebellion would have convinced the Kremlin that he had gone over to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s side.
• Ukrainian troops are “slowly but surely” advancing on the front line in the east and southeast of the country, This was announced by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhnyi.

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• Thursday’s events related to Russian aggression were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro