Putin’s Victory Threatens Ukraine’s EU Membership

It had all the makings of one of those nightmare EU summits.

A crucially important meeting that would drag on rancorously late beyond the end of the week.

The villain of the piece, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban – whose critics call him Putin’s puppet – had arrived looking up for a fight.

There was nothing to discuss, he said, when it came to talks on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

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But by early evening a summit surprise – striding into the reporters’ hall, EU Council president Charles Michel had a breakthrough to announce.

The EU had approved the start of talks on Ukraine joining the union. Hungary‘s opposition had appeared to crumble.

This is a huge moment for Ukraine. Ukrainians have a chance now to meet the destiny they set themselves almost a decade ago when they rose up to throw off Russian domination.

And it gives them even more to fight for.

It will be a massive boost to morale as they prepare for a long hard winter, with their infrastructure set to be pummelled again and again by armadas of Russian drones.

And not a moment too soon. As EU leaders were meeting in Brussels, in Moscow, their antagonist, President Putin, was sounding as belligerent as ever.