dire. i mean you will recall that a couple of weeks ago, two british fighters, and moroccan were captured by the russians. they were holed up in the sort of kangaroo court and in the occupied part of ukraine. and they were handed the death sentence. and the russians are saying that they were mercenaries, they don t regard them as fighters, so they are not protected by the geneva convention. ali, while i have you, i do want to ask you another question about the recommendation of the european commission. when i saw this in my email, i was pretty shocked to hear about this coming from the european commission. essentially saying that they are going to recommend eu membership for ukraine. what reaction are you hearing about this? there they have been granted a candidacy status. and that is the fastest it has ever happened in eu history. you will recall that a few days alone, macron and the german and italian leaders visited kyiv. they had a meeting with zelenskyy, and they fast-tracked
talk more about what s behind that and anything else we know about these missing americans, especially with the new comments from president biden today? hey, ali, that s right. an enormous amount of solidarity being shown to ukraine by european leaders. yesterday, the three most powerful members of the european union were here. and they ve fast tracked ukraine s candidacy status for the european union. that s a very important step for ukraine to join the european union, but i have to note, there s still a long way to go before they get full membership. and boris johnson made his second surprise visit to kyiv now. he s forged a very close relationship with zelenskyy and he made a lot of promises to zelenskyy that i think that he wanted to hear. he promised to help them unblock ukrainian grain, which he said is being held hostage by moscow in the black sea ports. he pledged a lot more weapons, rocket systems, artillery, that they need to fight this war, which is what zelenskyy has been
ukrainians i ve spoken to want very much as well as membership to nato but there is a dose of skepticism here as well. look, the especially the eu leaders that came here, the french, the italians, and the germans, are not particularly popular here in ukraine because ukrainians feel that they haven t got that sort of full-throated support from them. they haven t received the tanks from the germans that they promised them, and the comments that president macron has made in the past that it may take decades for ukraine to join the european union and that vladimir putin mustn t be humiliated have not gone down particularly well here. so, they re very excited that they got fasttracked into their candidacy status. the fastest it s ever happened in eu history. but if they don t get that full membership, it will be a crushing blow to them. jeremy, does the full membership matter if it doesn t have the caveats of all of the weapons that the ukrainians want? i mean, is this a bit of i don
above ukraine. vladimir putin renewed his call for a no-fly zone to help stop russia s attacks, and in the coming hours mr. zelenskyy is expected to address the council of europe, the continent s leading rights organization. the group is meeting today and tomorrow to discuss russia s invasion of ukraine. cnn s natasha bertrand joins us now live from brussels with more. natasha, good morning. what more can we expect to hear from zelenskyy besides calling once again for a no-fly zone here? reporter: isa, he is likely to reiterate the message he has been sending the last few weeks and months ukraine wants to be a member of european union. of course, last week e.u. members met and they decided against fast tracking the candidacy status for ukraine. that has been very disappointing obviously for zelenskyy in addition to calling for the no-fly zone. he has been conveying to the europeans that ukraine feels
ways, that is more worrying say the americans because russian military philosophy is that the sort of weapons are usable on a battlefield, even though they are nuclear weapons. what the americans want to know is, is this just rhetoric from president putin, talking about putting his forces on higher alert, or is there something more to it? either way, they are saying this kind of talk has to be taken seriously. kind of talk has to be taken seriously- kind of talk has to be taken seriousl . ., ,, , ., , we re going to the polish border with ukraine now, kasia madera is there for us. poland s president has been advocating that ukraine gets take candidacy status to join the eu given ukraine is notjust poland s geographic neighbour, it is also culturally incredibly close. alisa