The leaders of the European Union’s three largest economies arrived in Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, and French president Emmanuel Macron traveled to the Ukrainian capital overnight by train. “We are at a turning point in our history,” said Draghi, according to the Washington Post.  “Every day the Ukrainian people are defending the values of democracy and liberty that are the pillars of the European project, of our project,” he said.

The three leaders announced their support for Ukraine to be “immediately” granted EU candidate status. “I want to say today that the most important message of our visit is that Italy wants Ukraine in the European Union and wants Ukraine to have candidate status and will support this position in the next European Council,” said Draghi, with the other two European leaders voicing similar positions.

Ukraine would need to receive approval from all twenty-seven European member states—including Hungary, which maintains a tense relationship with Kyiv—before it can join the EU.

Candidate countries must prove their compliance with a wide range of EU laws and regulations, a process that can drag on for years. Macron said last month that Ukraine’s EU accession could take “several decades,” admitting that the country’s application would require the EU to “lower standards of membership,” as per Axios.  

"We understand that the path to the European Union is really a path and it is not one step. But this path must begin, and we are ready to work so that our state is transformed into a full member of the European Union, and Ukrainians have already earned the right to embark on this path," said Zelenskyy during a joint press conference with the European leaders.

The three European leaders also visited Irpin, a Kyiv suburb devastated during the war’s earlier stages. “We will rebuild everything. They destroyed the kindergartens, they destroyed the children’s gardens. Everything will be rebuilt. They have already started,” said Draghi.

The Ukrainian president used the meeting to reiterate his calls for the West to step up its deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukrainian troops as Russian forces continue to see steady gains in the eastern Donbass region. "Each batch of such supplies equals rescued Ukrainians. And every day of delaying or postponing decisions is a chance for the Russian military to kill Ukrainians or a chance to destroy our cities. There is a direct connection: the more powerful weapons we get, the faster we can liberate our people and liberate our land," he said.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.