Zelenskyy Rejects 'Associate' EU Status as Drones Hit Perm, Black Sea

The diplomatic move came first. In a letter to European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, seen by dpa and Reuters, Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the "associate" EU membership proposal Friedrich Merz floated earlier in the week, writing that "there can be no complete European project without Ukraine, and Ukraine's place in the European Union must also be complete -- full and equal," and that the enlargement process was "taking too long." The Merz letter had argued accession could not "be completed shortly given the countless hurdles" and proposed instead a status with attendance at EU Council meetings but no vote, an "associate" commissioner without portfolio, and MEPs without voting rights. A German government spokesperson, cited by Reuters, framed the proposal as opening "the necessary debate" and said there was "a high level of agreement" with Zelenskyy on the priority of opening negotiation chapters. Ukraine has held official candidate status since December 2023 and Hungary's Orban veto fell with last month's electoral defeat to Peter Magyar.

The long-range campaign that has defined this stage of the war reached new geographic depth in the same 24 hours. Ukraine's Security Service struck the AKM complex of Metafrax Chemicals in Gubakha, Perm Krai -- 1,700 km from the border -- and forced production to halt, with Zelenskyy describing the plant as a supplier of "important components for the Russian arms industry, including for drones, rocket engines and explosives." On the Black Sea coast, the Ukrainian general staff said it had hit the Sheskharis oil terminal at Novorossiysk and the Grushovaya transshipment depot operated by Transneft, with debris from a downed drone igniting fires in technical and administrative buildings; Novorossiysk mayor Andrei Kravchenko said two people were wounded. The tanker Chrysalis was hit in the Black Sea, and Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces struck the Russian frigate Admiral Essen and a Project 1239 missile hovercraft in Novorossiysk port; additional strikes hit a logistics hub in Luhansk, a UAV facility, an Osa air defence system in Donetsk and Russian communication hubs. The Russian Defence Ministry reported intercepting 348 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over the Moscow region; the Ukrainian air force said it neutralised 102 of 124 Russian drones launched at Ukraine.

Russia's reciprocal pressure stayed on Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure. Naftogaz CEO Serhii Koretskyi said Russian forces had conducted a 24-hour-plus large-scale attack on the company's gas and oil installations across Kharkiv and Poltava oblasts, with "serious damage to equipment and major fires" and personnel evacuated. Russian shelling on May 22-23 killed four and wounded 25 across Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts -- one killed and 20 wounded in Kherson, three killed and five wounded in Kharkiv, regional military administrations said. A Russian FPV drone deliberately struck a funeral procession on the outskirts of Sumy, killing one mourner and wounding nine, after the operator watched the procession in real time and steered the drone toward the bus alongside which the cortege was moving. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office said it has documented 11,000 Russian drone attacks against civilians and rescuers, with Kherson alone accounting for 5,303 cases, 287 civilian deaths and 2,549 wounded.

The diplomacy track moved alongside the war. Keir Starmer hosted a video call in the E3-Ukraine format with Zelenskyy, Merz and Emmanuel Macron centred on "how peace diplomacy can be revived and how Europe can play a role in it," in Zelenskyy's account. Starmer's spokesperson said European support for Ukraine "will be reinforced further in the coming months." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, said Washington was prepared to broker new peace talks while acknowledging an impasse; the Kremlin has offered to include Europeans but proposed former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder -- Putin's long-time friend -- as interlocutor, an offer many European officials described as "poisoned." NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he had already invited Zelenskyy to the alliance's Ankara summit in early July: "He will be there." Zelenskyy said in his evening address Friday that Ukraine had retaken "590 square kilometres" of territory since the start of the year and that a refinery at Yaroslavl, about 700 km from the border, had been struck in the past 24 hours.

The war's institutional consequences crowded the same day. Two days after Russia raised the death toll from the May 22 Ukrainian drone strike on a vocational-school dormitory at Lugansk Pedagogical University in Russian-occupied Starobilsk -- 65 km from the front and home to 86 students aged 14 to 18 -- Russian civil defence said the toll had reached 18 dead and three missing, with rescue work ongoing; Putin called the attack a "terrorist act" not "in any way accidental" and promised a military response. The Ukrainian general staff said it had struck a headquarters of Russia's Rubikon special drone unit and denied targeting civilians. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the strike through a spokesperson in New York, saying "we strongly condemn any attack against civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur," and the UN Security Council convened on the matter at Russia's request. UNHCR's Kyiv representative Bernadette Castel-Hollingworth said a Russian missile on Wednesday hit a UNHCR warehouse in Dnipro, killing two and destroying about $1 million of aid; she said it was the first time a UNHCR facility had been attacked, and that two clearly marked UN convoys had been hit by drones in Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson the previous week.

President Zelenskyy enacted a sanctions package targeting 127 Russian military commanders accused of directing missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure -- including the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv -- alongside 29 civilian vessels. Closer to home, the Vyshhorod District Military Administration ordered preparations for all-round defence in 32 settlements in Kyiv Oblast, including Kyiv city, with priority works estimated at up to UAH 11 billion ($249 million).