EU candidate status for Ukraine is also a weapon against Putin - Poroshenko

The relevant video appeared on the former Ukrainian president's Facebook page.

"Apart from the weapons that our partners supply today, the United States, Canada, Britain, and to a large extent the EU and France, giving Ukraine candidate status is also a very powerful weapon against Putin. That we are united, that we are Europeans, that we don't succumb to blackmail, which Putin uses to put pressure on the free democratic world. We remember that this is not a war against Ukraine, but a war against the whole of Europe and against the whole democratic world," Poroshenko said.

The fifth Ukrainian president emphasizes that this destroys Putin's narrative of 'spheres of influence', according to which Ukraine is in Russia's orbit.

"The Ukrainian people, together with the peoples of the world, with members of the anti-Putin coalition, buried Putin's dream and said: No to the new Russian Empire, no new version of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian people started this process in 2014, when we built our own army, when we became members of the Association with the EU, when we carried out reforms to return to the European family," Poroshenko stressed.