For four months, Ukraine has been fighting for its very existence. Having successfully forced Russia to shift focus from a four-fronted offensive to concentrating on the Donbas region in the east of the country, Ukraine is now fighting a bitter war of attrition – losing, depending on whose figures you trust, between 200 and 1,000 soldiers a day, including wounded.
Meanwhile, the recent withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the town of Severodonetsk on June 24 left virtually the whole of the Luhansk region under Russian control. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has addressed the G7 summit via videolink from Kyiv, calling for more – and more advanced – weapons systems as well as harsher sanctions against Russia.
But there has been some good news. It was announced on June 23, that Ukraine had been given EU candidate status, alongside its neighbour Moldova.
