EU leaders will gather in Brussels Thursday to discuss calls to formally grant war-torn Ukraine "candidate status" to join the bloc, as Russian forces slowly advance in the eastern Donbas region despite fierce resistance from Kyiv's military.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had been conducting a "telephone marathon" on his country's behalf in the run-up to the meeting, making his country's case to 11 European leaders on Wednesday alone, AFP said.
