1. Read Text 1 and explain the meaning of the phrases in bold.

Text 1.

Europe Offers Ukraine a Hope of Joining the

E.U., but Not a Vast Arsenal
In their first wartime visit to Kyiv, the leaders of France and Germany countered doubts about their
commitment to Ukraine defeating Russia, but did not promise the weapons Ukrainians have called
for.
June 16, 2022
KYIV, Ukraine — European leaders on Thursday pledged support for putting Ukraine on a path to
membership in the European Union but did not promise the country additional heavy weapons on
the scale it says it needs to repel a bloody Russian advance in the east.
The leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania, meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky
of Ukraine in Kyiv, all agreed to support Mr. Zelensky’s push to take the first step toward
membership in the bloc, a move to redefine Ukraine as an integral part of Europe rather than a
buffer state on its eastern rim.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany said that he and his fellow leaders had come “with a clear
message: Ukraine belongs to the European family.”
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is expected to announce on
Friday its official recommendation on Ukraine’s application to become a formal candidate for
membership. The approval process could take years.
The visiting leaders took pains to counter suggestions that they — particularly President Emmanuel
Macron of France — would prefer a quick, negotiated end to the war, even if that rewarded Russian
aggression with territorial gains.
“What I am saying today is that Ukraine must win this war,” Mr. Macron said.
The visit generated a mixed reaction in Ukraine, as the country moved closer to its long-sought goal
of E.U. candidate status but did not gain major pledges of more long-range weapons to overcome
Russia’s vast artillery advantage on the open plains of the eastern Donbas region.
“We expect new supplies, especially heavy weapons, modern rocket artillery and missile defense
systems,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Each batch of supplies saves people’s lives. And every day of delays
or postponed decisions is an opportunity for the Russian military to kill Ukrainians.”
Mr. Macron said that France would deliver six additional Caesar truck-mounted howitzers in the
coming weeks, on top of the 12 already delivered. The United States has given Ukraine 108 long-
range howitzers and this week promised several more.
But the deliveries and commitments are a fraction of the 1,000 howitzers that an adviser to Mr.
Zelensky said are needed for battlefield parity in eastern Ukraine. Western commitments of rocket
artillery systems, tanks and other gear fall similarly short of Ukrainian requests.
The Kyiv visit was shadowed by questions about whether European leaders would press Mr.
Zelensky to pursue a peace deal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, as concerns grow in
European capitals over the costs of a protracted war and the risk of broader European involvement.
The Kremlin appeared to send an economic warning to E.U. leaders on Thursday, as Gazprom,
Russia’s state-controlled gas company, cut the flow to Europe’s most important natural gas pipeline
for the second day in a row, making gas prices surge further.
Mr. Zelensky said that the leaders had privately raised the prospect of negotiations with Moscow.
But talks, he said, would not end the war at this stage.
“We touched on the theme of diplomatic efforts of various countries to achieve peace,” he said.
“Everybody sees the only obstacle to all these efforts is the unreadiness of the Russian Federation
for real actions, for real negotiations.”
Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, said in an interview that he did not view
the promise of E.U. candidacy as a part of a deal that Europe was offering in exchange for Mr.
Zelensky’s government moving toward cease-fire talks.
But a sense of disappointment was palpable among some Ukrainian officials.
Viktor Andrusiv, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, wrote on social media that “Macron,
Scholz and Draghi are bringing us candidacy for the E.U. and a request to return to the negotiating
process with Putin.”
European leaders insisted that they were not pressing Mr. Zelensky to accept a peace deal with
Moscow, adhering to the Biden administration’s stance that it is up to Ukraine to decide for itself
when and how to negotiate.
“We are and we will remain by your side in the long run to defend your sovereignty, your territorial
integrity and your freedom,” Mr. Macron told Mr. Zelensky. “This is our goal, we have no other,
and we will achieve it.”
Questioned by reporters about his recent comment that Ukraine and its allies should “not humiliate
Russia” to improve the chances for diplomacy, Mr. Macron said his words had been misconstrued.
He drew an analogy to the punitive terms France and its allies imposed on Germany after World
War I, often seen as sowing the seeds of the next world war.
“France made a historic mistake: It lost peace, because it wanted to humiliate Germany,” he said.
When the current war ends, he said, Ukraine must not “make the mistakes that others made in the
past.”
As the visit unfolded, a French diplomatic official even appeared to endorse the broadest definition
of victory cited by Ukrainian officials, calling for Russia to relinquish all the territory it has seized
from Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Mr. Scholz joined Mr. Macron in rebutting suspicions that Europe was pushing Ukraine to the
negotiating table.
“Only Ukraine — the president, the government, the Parliament, the Ukrainian people — can
decide what is right in the context of an agreement on peace from which, unfortunately, we are still
very, very far away,” he said.
The European leaders, including Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy and President Klaus Iohannis
of Romania, also traveled to Irpin, a Kyiv suburb where investigators are examining reports of
Russian atrocities. Guided by a Ukrainian official, the leaders saw a video and a photo exhibition as
well as burned-out and bombed buildings.
“It is even worse,” Mr. Scholz said, “when you see how terribly senseless the violence is that we are
seeing here.”
Russia dismissed the visit as empty symbolism. Dmitri A. Medvedev, the former Russian president
who is vice chairman of Mr. Putin’s Security Council, on Thursday disparaged the French, German
and Italian leaders as “European connoisseurs of frogs, liverwurst and pasta.”
“They promised E.U. membership again and old howitzers, had some Ukrainian vodka shots and
took the train home, like 100 years ago,” Mr. Medvedev wrote on Twitter. He added, “It’s just that
this doesn’t bring Ukraine any closer to peace. And the clock is ticking…”
Ukraine’s pleas for heavy weapons have grown increasingly urgent as Russia threatens to seize
control of the Donbas.
In the twin cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk, where some of the deadliest fighting has been
waged in recent weeks, all of the bridges between the cities have been destroyed, leaving thousands
of civilians largely trapped.
An estimated 10,000 people remain in heavily besieged Sievierodonetsk, with several hundred
believed to be holed up in bunkers beneath a chemical plant that is under near constant
bombardment.
People in the city have reported running out of food and clean water, describing scenes similar to
those that played out during the siege in Mariupol, where residents went for weeks without
electricity or water and dug trenches to accommodate the mounting numbers of bodies.
Serhiy Haidai, the head of the region’s military administration, said the shelling in Sievierodonetsk
was so intense that “people can no longer stand it in the shelters — their psychological state is on
the edge.”
Russia does not control the city, he said, and pitched battles are being fought from house to house.
At the same time, Russian forces are laying waste to villages around the city, Mr. Haidai said.
“The destruction of the residential sector is catastrophic,” he said.
An estimated 60,000 civilians are still believed to be in Lysychansk, where Ukraine remains in
control.
In Brussels, NATO defense ministers ended a two-day meeting on Thursday by weighing ways to
deter further Russian aggression and by debating a new “strategic concept,” the first in 12 years,
that sees Russia and China as potential threats.
NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance would create more stockpiles of war-
fighting equipment on its eastern flank, put more troops on a state of high readiness and make new
investments in air, cyber and naval defense.
All of these preparations will require member countries to spend more on their own militaries and
on NATO itself, Mr. Stoltenberg said. “The substantial strengthening of our deterrence and defense
is necessary for security, but it does not come for free,” he said.
The Kremlin has cast NATO as an enemy behind Kyiv in the war, insisting that Ukraine must never
join the alliance and calling for other former members of the Soviet bloc to leave it. Moscow has
been less vehement in opposing E.U. membership for Ukraine, though it has long preferred Ukraine
be economically dependent on Russia.
The support of France, Germany and Italy for E.U. membership was widely celebrated as a
breakthrough for Ukraine. Mr. Honcharenko, the Ukrainian lawmaker, said it would help rally
Ukraine by signaling a postwar future within the bloc and an end to the perception of Ukraine as a
security buffer between Europe and Russia.
“It’s a psychological weapon to demonstrate that Ukraine has a future,” he said.
“Ukrainians are the only people on the continent dying for European values,” he added. “Europe
would betray itself if it did not make this decision.”
(Europe Offers Ukraine a Hope of Joining the E.U., but Not a Vast Arsenal - The New York Times
(nytimes.com))

2. Read Text 2 and make a list of useful vocabulary. Report these phrases in class and explain their
meaning in English.
Text 2.

The EU should declare Ukraine a candidate for

membership
To do otherwise would be to appease Russia
Jun 16th 2022
Editor’s note (June 17th 2022): Since this article was published France, Germany, Italy and the
European Commission have said that Ukraine should be invited to start the process of accession to
the EU.
What is the point of the European Union? In a nutshell, to spread peace and prosperity on the
continent. That mission has seen its membership expand steadily from the six founders of its
precursor in the 1950s to 27 countries today. But in recent years its growth has slowed. No new
member has been admitted since Croatia in 2013 (and one has left). Now war has ignited on
the EU’s borders—just the sort of horror its founders hoped to banish from the continent. To be true
to the EU’s mission, to bolster an embattled democracy and to face down the sort of nationalist
aggression to which the EU considers itself the antidote, the club’s leaders, who meet in Brussels
next week, should formally declare Ukraine a candidate for membership.
The fainthearted will object, saying that Ukraine is too poor, too corrupt and now too war-torn to
join the cosy club. That is true, but it misses the point. No one imagines that Ukraine will be ready
to become a member for many years yet. It will have plenty of hoops to jump through before that
can or should happen. If Ukraine does not make sufficient progress, it should not be admitted. The
progression from candidate to member is by no means inexorable: Turkey has been in the
queue since 1987.
The conferral of candidate status initiates a flurry of paperwork. It can create a powerful incentive
for the government of the would-be member to institute big administrative and economic reforms.
But its main significance is as an expression of intent, from both sides, to make the applicant part of
the European family. In Ukraine’s case, the symbolism of such a statement is huge. The EU would
be saying that it considers Ukraine a sovereign European country no different from France or
Finland, and potentially with just as bright a future. That, of course, is the opposite of what
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, believes, and a complete rejection of everything he is hoping to
achieve with his invasion.
Consider the alternative. Ukraine has asked to become a candidate for membership. If
the EU rejects the request, it would be signalling to Mr Putin that Ukraine is somehow different
from the other poor and corrupt places on Europe’s eastern fringes that are slowly being absorbed
into the club—that it is not truly European, or truly sovereign. That is tantamount to confirming Mr
Putin’s view that Ukraine is a cartographic fiction that should fall into his sphere of influence, not
the West’s. To send such a signal when Ukraine is fighting for its very existence would not just
undermine the principles the EU claims to hold dear; it would encourage the biggest enemy of
European stability and dishearten his latest victim.
It is true that even starting negotiations on Ukrainian membership will bring big practical problems.
It is not easy to convene working groups with missiles raining down. Assuming that Ukraine will
struggle to reclaim all the territory seized by Russia, at least in the near term, it will be difficult to
decide how to treat people and goods from the occupied areas. But the EU admitted Cyprus even
though it does not control a third of its territory. The best solution is not to shy away from making
Ukraine a candidate, but to give it more weapons, and so help it beat back Russia’s army, which is
grinding forward bloodily in the Donbas region. In particular, modern artillery could help halt the
Russian advance.
The EU likes to think of itself not as a self-interested club of well-to-do countries, but as the
embodiment of the idea that openness and integration are superior to narrow, prickly nationalism. It
has had great success in propagating that idea through expansion. It would be not only ironic, but
tragic, if it were to retreat from its principles in the face of Mr Putin’s warmongering. Now is the
time to signal not just to Ukraine, but also to other countries bullied by Russia, such as Georgia
and Moldova (and indeed long-rebuffed bits of the Balkans), that the EU remains determined to
spread peace and prosperity ever more widely.
(The EU should declare Ukraine a candidate for membership (economist.com))

3. Read Text 3, find the English equivalents for and explain the meaning of the following vocabulary.
Верховенство права –
Подолати корупцію –
Підтримати заявку країни на статус кандидата –
Одноголосне рішення –
Дотримуватись міжнародного права –
Незмінне рішення –
Пильно спостерігати –
Вимагати підвищеної уваги –
Одразу після вторгнення –
Додати заявку на членство до ЄС –
Умови, обмеження –
Нечітке повідомлення, натяк –
Могутні держави –
Обійти, обігнати –
Підтримати –
За правилами –
Після декількох років –

Text 3.

Ukraine moves one step closer to EU membership

17 June 2022
The European Commission has backed Ukraine's bid to be given candidacy status to join the
EU - bringing it one step closer to joining the bloc.
"Good work has been done" by Ukraine, but more is needed, European Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen said.
Ukraine must make "important" reforms - on rule of law, oligarchs, human rights and tackling
corruption, she added.
Candidacy status is a significant step to joining the EU. However, the whole process can take many
years.
The recommendation from the European Commission still needs to be signed off by the EU's 27
member states, who meet to discuss it next week. The French, German and Italian leaders have
already backed Ukraine's bid, but the decision must be unanimous.
Speaking from Brussels and wearing blue and yellow - the colours of Ukraine - Ms von der Leyen
said Ukrainians were "ready to die" for the European perspective.
"We want them to live with us in the European dream," she said, adding that Ukraine had shown its
"aspiration and determination to live up to European values and standards".
But it is conditional - Ukraine has work to do, she said, to ensure international law is respected.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that the "historic decision" would bring "victory
closer".
The announcement comes a day after the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania
visited Kyiv and backed Ukraine's bid to join the EU - a big vote of confidence for Ukraine that
today's decision was inevitable.
Meanwhile in Russia, the Kremlin has been watching Ukraine's efforts to join the EU very closely.
The development "requires our heightened attention, because we are all aware of the intensification
of discussions in Europe on the subject of strengthening the defence component of the EU",
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters at his regular news briefing.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Russia would not oppose Ukraine's accession to the
EU.
"We have never been against it. We have always been against military utilisation of Ukraine
territory. As regards economic integration, that is their choice," he told the St Petersburg economic
forum.
Ukraine's neighbours, Moldova and Georgia - both ex-Soviet nations - also applied for EU
membership shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, concerned that other countries that were once
part of the Soviet Union would be next.
Ms von der Leyen announced support for Moldova - one of Europe's poorest countries - to move to
candidacy status, but not Georgia.
"[Moldova] is on a real pro-reform, anti-corruption and European path," she said. "Georgia must
now come together politically to design a clear path towards structural reform and the EU."
There are five nations that currently have EU candidacy status - Albania, North Macedonia,
Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.
EU shows solidarity - but there are caveats
Wearing Ukraine's colours, Ursula Von der Leyen's message wasn't subtle - the EU wants to show
solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
But there are caveats.
The recommendation has to be signed off by member states, although after heavyweights France,
Germany and Italy threw themselves behind the plans yesterday, that seems likely to happen.
There are also, though, conditions attached to today's announcement; such as the need for further
judicial and anti-corruption reforms.
Ms Von der Leyen insisted the whole process would be done "by the book". That's potentially to
signal to countries who have long been in the waiting room that they won't be unfairly leapfrogged.
But it's also a message to existing EU member states who are generally wary of "enlargement".
There are Brussels diplomats who warn privately that, while it's important to give Ukrainians hope,
there's a risk it could come to feel like false hope if the process gets stuck years down the line.
(Ukraine moves one step closer to EU membership - BBC News)

4. Read Text 4 and answer the question in the headline.

Text 4.
Why Ukraine’s longshot bid to join the EU is
likely to enrage Putin
Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN
Updated 7:54 AM EDT, Fri June 17, 2022
Four days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine and started a bloody war that shows no signs
of ending soon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially applied for the country to
join the European Union.

On the same day, February 28, he asked that the EU “urgently admit Ukraine using a new
procedure … our goal is to be with all Europeans and, to be equal to them. I am sure we
deserve it. I am sure it is possible.”

Nearly four months later, the EU Commission said on Friday that Ukraine should be
considered a candidate state. It is now for the 27 EU member states to decide whether or not
they agree with the Commission’s opinion.

The question of whether or not Ukraine should join the EU and how Russia would react has
been a contentious issue for years. In 2013, pro-European protests erupted after former
Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych made a sudden decision to not sign an agreement
with the EU that would pull Ukraine further into the EU’s orbit. Instead, he opted to pursue
closer ties with Putin’s Russia.

The following year, Russia invaded Donbas and illegally annexed Crimea.

While most European nations are firmly behind Ukraine and have, to varying degrees, aided
Zelensky in his war efforts, it’s far from certain that his wish will be granted.

For political and procedural reasons, it is possible that the EU ultimately decides that now is
not the right time. And even if they did agree with European Commission President Ursula
von der Leyen’s opinion that Ukraine should be considered for membership, it could take
years, even decades, for it to become a reality.

Here’s why.

What is the process for joining the EU?

On paper, the process is relatively straightforward. A country applies and the Commission
gives a verdict on whether or not it should be considered for candidacy. As is likely to be the
case with Ukraine, the Commission will probably present a few ways for member states to go
about accepting a new candidate.

As von der Leyen made clear on Friday, Ukraine will still have to meet a series of criteria
before proper accession negotiations can begin, even if the EU 27 agree to accept its
candidate status next week.

The Copenhagen Criteria is a fairly opaque trio of requirements that the EU must be satisfied
a candidate state has met in order to enter the proper accession negotiations. They focus on
whether or not that country has a functioning free-market economy, if the country’s
institutions are fit to uphold European values such as human rights and the EU’s interpretation
of the rule of law and whether the country has a functioning, inclusive democracy.

Once the country has deemed to have met these criteria, they can begin the EU’s 35 chapters
of negotiation, the final three of which return to some areas of the Copenhagen Criteria.
Then, when the leaders of the EU member states have agreed, it must then be ratified in the
EU Parliament and by the legislative branches of each member state’s government.

How do EU countries feel about Ukraine joining the EU?

This is where it starts to get complicated. While the EU and its 27 members have broadly
supported Ukraine in its war effort, having a country that’s currently at war start the accession
process raises all sorts of issues.

There are a number of candidate states that have been in the accession process for years, and
have in some cases had their accession slowed down because of domestic political instability.
One example of this is the case of Turkey, whose application has been essentially frozen
following fears over a backslide over the rule of law and human rights. Starting the process
with a country currently at war will raise questions from other candidate states who have had
their applications similarly frozen.

There are also real concerns that Ukraine is a long way from meeting the Copenhagen Criteria
any time soon. According to Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index,
Ukraine is 122nd on its list of 180 countries. For comparison, Russia sits in 136th place.
Given that parts of Ukraine are currently occupied by Russia and could be long after the war
is over, it is hard to predict if this improves or worsens in the coming years. Some EU
officials have also expressed fears that after the war, it is hard to tell what human rights will
look like inside Ukraine.

Beyond these practical questions, there are political objections too. Some Western member
states who have been in the EU from the start are worried about the balance of power shifting
eastwards, where some countries have been backsliding on things like the rule of law in recent
years. The European establishment has struggled with both Hungary and Poland playing loose
with the EU rules and is learning the hard way that once a country is inside, they can get away
with a lot more.

Other member states are concerned about Ukraine joining the bloc and immediately
consuming a huge amount of the EU budget because of the enormous rebuilding exercise that
will need to be undertaken.

And some simply express concern that getting Ukraine into a long, painful negotiation with
the EU is not the best way to support the country at this moment in time.

How long would it take?

It really depends on what state Ukraine is in when war ends. It seems highly unlikely that
Ukraine will be anywhere near meeting the criteria to even start negotiations for a significant
period of time after the end of the war. Aside from the rebuilding project, Ukraine will have
to make the transition from a country operating under various degrees of martial law and
curfews to a functioning democracy.

The average time for a country to join the EU is four years and 10 months, according to the
London think tank, UK in a Changing Europe. Member states that might be considered a sort
of blueprint for Ukraine’s membership – Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Slovenia – were all over
the average wait time.

What would joining the EU mean for Ukraine?

Ukraine would be a member of the world’s largest trading bloc, the EU’s single market and
customs union, and would have the protection of EU courts and access to the EU budget.
Joining the EU would also place Ukraine very clearly in the club of countries that are
considered to be part of the Western alliance and US-led world order.

How has Russia reacted?

The Kremlin said Friday’s development required Moscow’s “increased attention.” “We all
know about the intensification in Europe and discussions about strengthening the defense
component of the EU. Therefore, there are different transformations that we observe,”
spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a daily call with reporters.

Moscow has previously said that joining the EU would be on a par with joining NATO, a
point harder to push back against now that the EU is becoming so overtly geopolitical.

Russia has already reacted very badly to the suggestion that Finland and Sweden, EU member
states, might join NATO. Seeing Ukraine warmly embraced by an institution so associated
with the West will no doubt be seen as an act of aggression by Putin.

How likely is Ukraine’s bid to succeed?

It won’t happen soon, but it is likely that the EU will make a special effort to support Ukraine
following its invasion by Russia.

Many European leaders have been to visit Zelensky in Kyiv, and the thinking among some
officials is that they cannot come out of the leaders’ summit on June 24 empty-handed after
posing for photos alongside a real war-time president.

But the EU has a long history of doing unexpected things, even throughout this crisis. And
more often than not, these debates become a war of attrition among countries unable to see
eye-to-eye, before being kicked into the long grass for another day.

(https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/16/europe/ukraine-nato-membership-putin-analysis-cmd/index.html)

5. Match the phrases (1 -15) in A with the ones (a – o) in B.

A B
1. a contentious issue
2. to pursue closer ties with
3. to grant wishes
4. to give a verdict on
5. to uphold European values
6. a backslide
7. to freeze an application
8. to play loose with
9. blueprint for
10. martial law
11. to be on a par with
12. to push back against smth
13. a war of attrition
14. to see eye-to-eye
15. to kick into the long grass
a) a conflict lasting until one side decides not to continue
b) to refuse to deal or delay dealing with smth immediately
c) to continue a strong relationship
d) to behave in a clever and dishonest way
e) military government
f) to agree with each other
g) to deliver a formal opinion
h) to fail to do smth you had agreed to do
i) to offer to help someone to achieve their goals
j) to be the same
k) to live by certain codes of beliefs
l) an example or plan
m) an important problem people are likely to argue about
n) to refuse to accept
o) to stop considering and responding to a request

6. Answer the following questions in your own words.

1. What is the process for joining the EU?
2. How do EU countries feel about Ukraine joining the EU?
3. How long would it take?
4. What would joining the EU mean for Ukraine?
5. How has Russia reacted?
6. How likely is Ukraine’s bid to succeed?