EU Commission supports Ukraine's bid to join the bloc - CNN

(CNN) Ukraine's bid to join the European Union received a major boost on Friday morning, after the bloc's executive said it believed the country should be formally considered for candidate status in the wake of Russia's invasion .

Speaking in Brussels, the European Commission's President Ursula von der Leyen said the Commission recommends "that Ukraine is given candidate status. This is of course on the understanding that the country will carry out a number of further reforms."

"In the view of the Commission, Ukraine has clearly demonstrated the country's aspiration and the country's determination to live up to European values and standards."

Von der Leyen ended her statement by saying: "We all know that Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective. We want them to live with us the European dream."

The Commission also recommended candidate status for Ukraine's neighbor Moldova, but not for Georgia, until it meets further conditions. Leaders of the 27 EU member states will now meet for a summit next week to discuss its opinion.

Even if the member states agree that Ukraine should be a candidate nation -- which is far from certain -- the process to join the EU is complicated and takes, on average, just under five years to complete, according to the think tank, UK in a Changing Europe

During a joint press conference in Kyiv on Thursday with the EU's main three political leaders, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia's attack on his country amounted to an attack on all of Europe.

He added that the best way to demonstrate "our common and strong position" is by supporting Ukrainian integration into the EU, adding that its status as a candidate for EU membership "can amplify freedom in Europe historically and become one of the key European decisions of the first third of the 21st century."

Zelensky said Ukraine was ready to work to become a full EU member: "We understand that 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."

Macron later said that the possible granting of EU candidate status to Ukraine was a result of Russia's invasion. He was speaking in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV Friday on board a train leaving Ukraine.

"Ukraine normally should not be a candidate," he said following his visit to Kyiv, "We're doing it because of the war and because we think it's good.

"It's a sign of hope, it's a message for Ukraine to say that they are in the European family," he said.

While Macron said most of Western Europe was supportive of the plan, "We have countries that are more reticent," he said.

The French leader added that the question of Ukraine's candidacy for the EU will be decided at the European Council summit next Thursday and Friday.

"The path is long to join the EU," he added.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal expressed his gratitude for the EC's decision. "Grateful to @vonderleyen for this decision!" he said via Twitter. "It will accelerate the process of full [Ukrainian] integration into the [European] internal market and effectively accompany the recovery of #Ukraine by EU standards."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia has "nothing against" Ukraine joining the EU.

"The EU is not a military-political bloc, unlike NATO, therefore we have always said and I have always said that our position here is consistent, understandable, we have nothing against it," Putin said during a panel discussion following his speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"It is the sovereign decision of any country to join or not to join economic associations, and it is up to this economic association to accept new states as its members or not. As far as it is expedient for the EU, let the EU countries themselves decide. Whether it will be for the benefit or to the detriment of Ukraine is also their business," Putin said.

(From left) Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis meet for a working session in Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv on June 16, 2022.

What happens next?

Ukraine will now work to meet the Copenhagen Criteria, an opaque trio of requirements that the EU must be satisfied a candidate state has met in order to enter the proper accession negotiations. They focus on whether or not that country has a functioning free-market economy, whether the country's institutions are fit to uphold European values such as human rights and the EU's interpretation of the rule of law and whether the country has a functioning, inclusive democracy.

There are also real concerns that Ukraine is a long way from meeting the Copenhagen Criteria any time soon. According to Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine is 122nd on its list of 180 countries. For comparison, Russia sits in 136th place.

Once the country is deemed to have met this criteria, it can begin the EU's 35 chapters of negotiation, the final three of which return to some areas of the Copenhagen Criteria.

Then, when the leaders of the EU member states have agreed, it must then be ratified in the EU Parliament and by the legislative branches of each member state's government.

Ukraine formally applied to join the EU on February 28, just four days after Russia began its invasion. Zelensky said at the time that the bloc must "urgently admit Ukraine using a new procedure ... our goal is to be with all Europeans and, to be equal to them. I am sure we deserve it. I am sure it is possible."

Before the war started, Zelensky had said that Ukraine would also like to join NATO. However, in the months since, he has cooled on the idea after it appeared the alliance was not willing to admit Kyiv any time soon.

"I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no," Zelensky said . "And the response was very clear, you're not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open," he said.

CNN's Joseph Ataman, Camille Knight, Anna Chernova and Niamh Kennedy contributed to this report.

Why Ukraine's longshot bid to join the EU is likely to enrage Putin ...

(CNN) Four days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine and started a bloody war that shows no signs of ending soon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially applied for the country to join the European Union.

On the same day, February 28, he asked that the EU "urgently admit Ukraine using a new procedure ... our goal is to be with all Europeans and, to be equal to them. I am sure we deserve it. I am sure it is possible."

Nearly four months later, the EU Commission said on Friday that Ukraine should be considered a candidate state. It is now for the 27 EU member states to decide whether or not they agree with the Commission's opinion.

The question of whether or not Ukraine should join the EU and how Russia would react has been a contentious issue for years. In 2013, pro-European protests erupted after former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych made a sudden decision to not sign an agreement with the EU that would pull Ukraine further into the EU's orbit. Instead, he opted to pursue closer ties with Putin's Russia.

The following year, Russia invaded Donbas and illegally annexed Crimea.

While most European nations are firmly behind Ukraine and have, to varying degrees, aided Zelensky in his war efforts, it's far from certain that his wish will be granted.

For political and procedural reasons, it is possible that the EU ultimately decides that now is not the right time. And even if they did agree with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's opinion that Ukraine should be considered for membership, it could take years, even decades, for it to become a reality.

Here's why.

What is the process for joining the EU?

On paper, the process is relatively straightforward. A country applies and the Commission gives a verdict on whether or not it should be considered for candidacy. As is likely to be the case with Ukraine, the Commission will probably present a few ways for member states to go about accepting a new candidate.

As von der Leyen made clear on Friday, Ukraine will still have to meet a series of criteria before proper accession negotiations can begin, even if the EU 27 agree to accept its candidate status next week.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a debate as part of a plenary session at the European Parliament on June 8, 2022 in Strasbourg, eastern France.

The Copenhagen Criteria is a fairly opaque trio of requirements that the EU must be satisfied a candidate state has met in order to enter the proper accession negotiations. They focus on whether or not that country has a functioning free-market economy, if the country's institutions are fit to uphold European values such as human rights and the EU's interpretation of the rule of law and whether the country has a functioning, inclusive democracy.

Once the country has deemed to have met this criteria, they can begin the EU's 35 chapters of negotiation, the final three of which return to some areas of the Copenhagen Criteria.

Then, when the leaders of the EU member states have agreed, it must then be ratified in the EU Parliament and by the legislative branches of each member state's government.

How do EU countries feel about Ukraine joining the EU?

This is where it starts to get complicated. While the EU and its 27 members have broadly supported Ukraine in its war effort, having a country that's currently at war start the accession process raises all sorts of issues.

There are a number of candidate states that have been in the accession process for years, and have in some cases had their accession slowed down because of domestic political instability. One example of this is the case of Turkey, whose application has been essentially frozen following fears over a backslide over the rule of law and human rights. Starting the process with a country currently at war will raise questions from other candidate states who have had their applications similarly frozen.

There are also real concerns that Ukraine is a long way from meeting the Copenhagen Criteria any time soon. According to Transparency International's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index, Ukraine is 122nd on its list of 180 countries. For comparison, Russia sits in 136th place. Given that parts of Ukraine are currently occupied by Russia and could be long after the war is over, it is hard to predict if this improves or worsens in the coming years. Some EU officials have also expressed fears that after the war, it is hard to tell what human rights will look like inside Ukraine.

A woman walks past a tent displaying the European Union and Ukrainian flags in Independence Square on January 28, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine.

Beyond these practical questions, there are political objections too. Some Western member states who have been in the EU from the start are worried about the balance of power shifting eastwards, where some countries have been backsliding on things like the rule of law in recent years. The European establishment has struggled with both Hungary and Poland playing loose with the EU rules and is learning the hard way that once a country is inside, they can get away with a lot more.

Other member states are concerned about Ukraine joining the bloc and immediately consuming a huge amount of the EU budget because of the enormous rebuilding exercise that will need to be undertaken.

And some simply express concern that getting Ukraine into a long, painful negotiation with the EU is not the best way to support the country at this moment in time.

How long would it take?

It really depends on what state Ukraine is in when war ends. It seems highly unlikely that Ukraine will be anywhere near meeting the criteria to even start negotiations for a significant period of time after the end of the war. Aside from the rebuilding project, Ukraine will have to make the transition from a country operating under various degrees of martial law and curfews to a functioning democracy.

The average time for a country to join the EU is four years and 10 months, according to the London think tank, UK in a Changing Europe. Member states that might be considered a sort of blueprint for Ukraine's membership -- Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Slovenia -- were all over the average wait time.

What would joining the EU mean for Ukraine?

Ukraine would be a member of the world's largest trading bloc, the EU's single market and customs union, and would have the protection of EU courts and access to the EU budget.

Joining the EU would also place Ukraine very clearly in the club of countries that are considered to be part of the Western alliance and US-led world order.

How has Russia reacted?

The Kremlin said Friday's development required Moscow's "increased attention." "We all know about the intensification in Europe and discussions about strengthening the defense component of the EU. Therefore, there are different transformations that we observe," spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a daily call with reporters.

Moscow has previously said that joining the EU would be on a par with joining NATO, a point harder to push back against now that the EU is becoming so overtly geopolitical.

Russia has already reacted very badly to the suggestion that Finland and Sweden, EU member states, might join NATO. Seeing Ukraine warmly embraced by an institution so associated with the West will no doubt be seen as an act of aggression by Putin.

How likely is Ukraine's bid to succeed?

It won't happen soon, but it is likely that the EU will make a special effort to support Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

Many European leaders have been to visit Zelensky in Kyiv, and the thinking among some officials is that they cannot come out of the leaders' summit on June 24 empty-handed after posing for photos alongside a real war-time president.

But the EU has a long history of doing unexpected things, even throughout this crisis. And more often than not, these debates become a war of attrition among countries unable to see eye-to-eye, before being kicked into the long grass for another day.

'Europe stands with you': EU leaders express solidarity with Ukraine ...

(CNN) The Prime Ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic reaffirmed their support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion during a meeting Tuesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in capital Kyiv.

Following the meeting, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called for the European Union to "very quickly" grant Ukraine candidate status.

"We are here to admire your fight against such a cruel aggressor. This invasion has to stop," Morawiecki said. "Those who are killed by (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, they can never be forgotten. They are not forgotten."

He also emphasized Poland, which shares a 310-mile border with Ukraine, would try to help Ukraine organize its defenses.

"We will never leave you alone. We will be with you. Because we know you are fighting not only for your homes, for your freedom, for your security, but also for ours," he said.

Read More

Antonia Mortensen
Abbaggini
Mariya Knight
Jeevan Ravindran

Will Ukraine join the EU? | The Week UK

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Ukraine moves closer to EU candidacy; Families of 2 missing ...

This is a recap of updates out of the war in Ukraine for Friday, June 17. For the latest news, click here.

The executive arm of the European Union recommended Friday that Ukraine become a candidate for membership, the first step in a process that could take decades.

The endorsement is set to be discussed by the bloc's leaders next week in Brussels.

"Ukraine has clearly demonstrated its aspiration and determination to live up to European values and standards," President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter. "We want them to live with us the European dream."

Russia's invasion in February increased pressure to fast-track Ukraine's candidate status. But accession talks require unanimous approval from all 27 member counties and some do not agree on how quickly the process of accepting new members should proceed.

The announcement comes as Russia continued its attacks on cities in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region leaving desperate residents wondering what the next years hold for them.

Latest developments:

►Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke at the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on Friday after the Kremlin said “massive cyberattacks” delayed his appearance, according to the Washington Post and CNN.

► Ukraine will not host Eurovision Song Contest in 2023, organizers announced Friday. In May, the Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won the contest with "Stefania,'' and the right to host next year's event.

►The UK said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Ukraine Friday on a surprise visit, his second trip since the Russian invasion began.

►Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday criticized the U.S. for its "reckless and insane" sanctions against the Kremlin, claiming that his economy will overcome the financial consequences to his war in Ukraine.

Families of 2 Americans missing in Ukraine speak out

The families of two Alabama men – who went missing near Kharkiv in a battle last week and were feared to have been captured – told USA TODAY they are holding out hope that the men could be released.

Joy Black's fiancée Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, a 27-year-old former Marine, drew up a will, said goodbye to her and left Hartselle, Alabama, in April to help Ukrainians repel Russian forces.

That same month, not far away in Tuscaloosa, former Army Sgt. Alexander Drueke, a 39-year-old Iraq war veteran, had deliberated for a month before deciding to pack his gear for Ukraine.

Russian state television on Friday showed video of the two men, confirming that they were taken captive and raising fears about their fate. They are believed to be the first Americans captured by Russian forces since the war began on Feb. 24.

Previously, Dianna Shaw, 55, Drueke’s aunt, urged the government to help bring them home. If they are in custody, "We appeal for Alex's and Andy's humane treatment in the meantime," Shaw said in a text message to USA TODAY on Friday. "Coach Nick Saban always tells us Bama fans to 'trust the process' and that's exactly what we are doing."

Meantime, the State Department has said it was aware of reports a third American was missing in Ukraine, whom the Washington Post and CNN identified as Grady Kurpasi, another Marine veteran.

On Friday, President Joe Biden said he'd been briefed. "We don't know where they are, but I want to reiterate: Americans should not be going to Ukraine now. Say it again: Americans should not be going to Ukraine," he told reporters. Read more here.

— Chris Kenning, USA TODAY

Biden: There's a 'price to pay' in helping Ukraine but it was important

In a rare interview with a news organization, President Biden told the Associated Press on Thursday "there was going to be a price to pay" for helping Ukraine, but not acting would have been worse.

"You’d see chaos in Europe," Biden said. "The Russians might have continued into other countries and China and North Korea could have been emboldened to make their own moves."

Asked about the political risk he now faces from higher gas prices and whether Americans have a daily sense of the national security stakes he described, Biden said most households are just trying to figure out how to put food on the table. But as president, he has to be willing to make tough decisions despite any political consequence, he said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently acknowledged that the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan's expanded child tax credit increased demand and might have caused a “marginal” increase in food prices. Biden rejected that possibility.

“You could argue whether it had a marginal, minor impact on inflation. I don’t think it did. And most economists do not think it did,” he said. “But the idea that it caused inflation is bizarre.” Read more here.

— Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY

Russian-owned superyacht seized by US arrives in Hawaii

A Russian-owned superyacht seized by the United States arrived in Honolulu Harbor on Thursday flying an American flag after the U.S. won a legal battle in Fiji last week to take the $325 million vessel.

The FBI has linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman Island-flagged vessel last year through various shell companies.

MORE:How the seizure of Russian superyachts helps the feds punish Putin and his oligarchs

The ship became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. The 348-foot-long vessel, about the length of a football field, features a live lobster tank, a hand-painted piano, a swimming pool and a large helipad.

Lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represented Millemarin Investments, the owner on paper, had argued the owner was another wealthy Russian who, unlike Kerimov, doesn’t face sanctions.

US to send $1B package to Ukraine

The U.S. announced it would send a $1 billion package of military assistance to Ukraine earlier this week — the largest allocation of aid provided by the U.S. since the invasion began.

The American aid package includes $350 million in rapid, off-the-shelf deliveries by the Pentagon and $650 million in other longer-term purchases. The U.S. military will send Ukraine 18 howitzers, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for them, tactical vehicles, in addition to other equipment like Harpoon coastal defense systems and secure radios.

Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar said this week that Ukraine had only received 10% of the military assistance it had requested from western countries.

Meanwhile, France, Germany, Slovakia, Canada, and Poland also pledged to send more military aid to Ukraine this week.

Russian spy attempted to access international court investigating war crimes as an intern, Dutch say

A Russian military spy posed as a Brazilian national in an attempt to get an internship at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which is investigating war crimes allegations in Ukraine, the Dutch intelligence service said Thursday.

The General Intelligence and Security Service named the Russian intelligence officer as Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov and said that in April he used an elaborately constructed identity to try to infiltrate the court. It published a letter that accompanied Cherkasov's internship application. Writing under the alias Viktor Muller Ferreira, he spun a complex cover tale about growing up in poverty in Brazil and how members of his family suffered from heart problems.

Cherkasov was detained at a Dutch airport and deported to Brazil, where he could face court proceedings.

“If the intelligence officer had succeeded in gaining access as an intern to the ICC, he would have been able to gather intelligence there and to look for (or recruit) sources, and arrange to have access to the ICC’s digital systems," the General Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.

That would have provided a "significant contribution" to the intelligence that Russia is seeking. The spy might also have been able to influence criminal proceedings, the service said.

There was no immediate reaction from Moscow, though the attempted infiltration may indicate how seriously Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking allegations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The Kremlin has consistently denied the accusation, saying the West was concocting a misinformation campaign against Russia.

– Kim Hjelmgaard

Contributing: The Associated Press

Ukraine's EU hopes rise as bloc's leaders approve candidate status ...

(CNN) Ukraine's long-term goal of joining the European Union has received its latest shot in the arm, after the bloc's 27 member states agreed Thursday that the country should be given candidate status -- a significant step on the path to full membership.

"Today marks a crucial step on your path towards the EU," European Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter after talks in Brussels. Leaders also agreed to approve Moldova's candidacy.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said he "sincerely commends" the European Council's decision, calling it "a unique and historical moment in EU/Ukraine relations."

The decision, made at an EU Council summit, comes a week after President of the European Commission Ursula von Der Leyen said it was the opinion of the bloc's executive body that Ukraine deserved candidate status because it "has clearly demonstrated the country's aspiration and the country's determination to live up to European values and standards."

However, it is still likely to be years before Ukraine is able to join the EU. The process is lengthy and requires agreement from the 27 member states at almost every stage. This means that there are multiple opportunities for member states to use their veto as a political bargaining chip.

Read More

Analysis: Serbia's gas deal with Putin has created a fresh headache ...

(CNN) On Sunday, Serbia's president Aleksandar Vucic announced that his country had agreed to a new three-year gas supply deal with Russia's state energy provider, Gazprom.

The news came at an awkward time, and in doing so, Vucic created a fresh headache for the Western anti-Putin alliance and, notably, for the European Union.

On the other side of the continent, EU heads of state were mired in in grueling negotiations over a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow. The final deal, announced late Monday, includes a partial ban on Russian oil imports to the bloc.

But Brussels was forced to make an exemption for oil that is imported to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic via a pipeline, in order to get everyone on board. This was seen by some EU members as a major concession.

While Serbia is not an EU member state, it is part of an EU enlargement plan that also includes some of its neighbors. The EU is set on expanding to the east and sees the Western Balkans as key to European security -- even more so in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Of these Balkan states, Serbia in particular is seen as crucial for numerous reasons.

Its size, population and geographical location all make it a major stakeholder in the geopolitics of the region. If you want to have a conversation about the future of Bosnia or Kosovo, you are going to need the Serbian government in the room.

However, Serbia is also very reliant on Russia when it comes to gas. It is also militarily cooperative with Moscow. In short, Serbia benefits enormously from its relationship with Russia, and even if it obtains EU membership down the road, it will not want to burn its bridges with the Kremlin.

This creates two simultaneous realities for the EU that, when placed next to one another, are rather difficult to reconcile.

Serbia is so big and important that it is crucial to the EU's enlargement project, which seeks to strengthen and expand European values, stability and security.

It is also so big and important that it can do deals with Russia, China and the EU all at the same time -- however it sees fit -- and still be the apple of Brussels' eye.

That might be about to change, though.

While Serbia has backed several UN resolutions condemning Russia's invasion, it has not sanctioned Moscow or aligned itself with Brussels on sanctions against Moscow -- something candidate states are expected to do. The new Russian gas deal, some EU officials and analysts fear, may be a step too far for some EU member states.

"If concluded, the deal would dash hopes of those who saw an opportunity to reduce the Russian influence in the region," said Filip Ejdus, associate professor of international security at the University of Belgrade.

Ejdus believes Vucic might be seeking to have his cake and eat it. He predicts the Serbian president "will certainly make reassurances that Serbia remains on the EU path, while maybe still expecting a better counter-offer by German chancellor Olaf Scholz."

However, Ejdus warned that "the gamble might backfire this time," as the EU has other policy priorities at the moment; he says trust between the two parties may be permanently damaged.

Whether that means that accession talks stall, or that the EU takes a different approach, remains to be seen. However, there is no denying that the gas deal has been a particularly bitter pill for officials and diplomats in Brussels to swallow.

"We are worried," one senior EU official told CNN. "Alignment from countries outside the EU is more important than ever, for countries inside the EU that are trying to hold the line," they said, referring specifically to Hungary, the EU member state most opposed to a hard stance on Russia.

Steven Blockmans, director of research at the Centre for European Policy Studies, told CNN that ever since the start of the war, "the EU has been pressuring third countries, including China, to have a similar approach to sanctions. If even states currently trying to join the EU circumvent the sanctions, it lends credence to outliers within the bloc to withstand pressure from Brussels to support a strong common position on Russia."

And the difficulties Serbia is causing Brussels don't end with sanctions. "This whole situation is a major pain for us, because it ties in with the conversation about whether or not Ukraine should join the EU," said one senior European diplomat. Ukraine formally applied for EU membership in early March, a process that can take years even when the bloc's members fully support a new country joining.

Multiple officials and diplomats explained to CNN why this debate is so tricky for the EU and its internal conversation about the bloc's future.

Some member states want to speed up the process for Ukraine, and think Serbia's lack of alignment with the EU's approach on Russia makes a case for countries that want to align as soon as possible to get preferential treatment.

Others don't want Ukraine or the Western Balkan nations to join at all, fearing that they would alter the balance of the EU, giving eastern European states more power in a bloc that has historically been dominated by Western European countries like Germany and France.

Finally, some member states share a degree of Euroskepticism and would welcome another member state less enamored with calls from some countries, notably France, for the bloc to become more closely politically integrated.

All this might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, while a war is being fought on the European continent. However, Putin's invasion of Ukraine has created an opportunity for Europe's security map to be redrawn.

To some extent, countries traditionally aligned with the US have grasped the opportunity to strengthen Western security with both hands. Finland and Sweden appear set to join NATO while others, most notably Germany, have committed to huge increases in defense spending.

The UK, no longer part of the EU, has worked well with its European allies and shown that -- despite Brexit -- it can still play a leading role in a united European front.

On the other hand, the chaos and uncertainty also creates opportunities for people in positions like Vucic's. He is useful to Brussels and to Moscow and clearly feels he can continue playing both sides for all they're worth.

The EU has faced many difficulties since the Ukraine crisis began, and keeping all 27 of its member states on side has been no easy task. But the fact that Serbia's gas deal happened in the same week that EU leaders met to have a showdown over banning Russian energy (one that ended with a fudge) underscores the extent to which some things are simply out of Brussels' centralized hands.

As time goes on, that could become a very tricky issue for the future of the European project.

Ukraine recap: EU makes Ukraine a candidate for membership

Editor's note: This page recaps the news from Ukraine on Thursday, June 23. Follow here for the latest updates and news from Friday, June 24, as Russia's invasion continues.

The European Union leadership approved Ukraine's candidacy for membership Thursday, starting the embattled nation on a yearslong path toward cementing a closer relationship with the West as it attempts to distance itself from its Russian invaders.

"Historic agreement, historic decision," European Council President Charles Michel tweeted after the decision was announced on the first day of an EU leaders summit in Belgium.

Ukraine has already implemented about 70% of EU rules, norms and standards, European officials have said. But they warned that the country still needs political and economic reforms, pointing to corruption. EU candidate status doesn't guarantee Ukraine membership and does not provide the military security provided by NATO membership. Still, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elated.

"Sincerely commend EU leaders’ decision at #EUCO to grant a candidate status," he tweeted. "It’s a unique and historical moment."

The EU also granted candidate status to Moldova, a tiny, non-NATO country that borders Ukraine.

USA TODAY ON TELEGRAM:Join our Russia-Ukraine war channel to receive updates straight to your phone

Latest developments:

►The U.S. will send $450 million more in military aid to Ukraine, including more medium-range rocket systems, officials said Thursday.

►Nike announced it will fully shut down operations in Russia after initially suspending its company-owned business three months ago. "Our priority is to ensure we are fully supporting our employees while we responsibly scale down our operations over the coming months," the company said.

►Germany activated the second phase of its three-stage emergency plan for natural gas supplies Thursday, warning that winter energy supplies are a concern due to dwindling deliveries from Russia.

Russia's war in Ukraine entering new phase

After its early military humiliation, Russia has regrouped in Ukraine and focused its wrath in the east with relentless shelling – giving Moscow momentum as the war moves into a bleak new phase.

With its vast supply of artillery, armor and troops, Russia now has an edge, experts say. Combat in Ukraine has shifted to the eastern part of the country, its mineral-rich, industrial heartland. Russian-backed separatists have fought for control of the region, known as the Donbas, since 2014.

"About 20% of Ukrainian territory has de facto been annexed," said Seth Jones, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They’ve replaced currency with ruble in many areas, replaced the educational curriculum, including Russian history. The hand-picked local authorities are Russian."

But Ukraine still holds potent advantages, including a fierce will to fight and new Western weapons.

The direction of the conflict will likely come into clearer focus over the summer, when Russia is likely to attempt to consolidate its gains in the Donbas region. However, experts believe local resistance, the steady flow of Western arms and Russian incompetence suggest they'll have difficulty holding ground.

Read the key takeaways on the current state of the war here.

-Tom Vanden Brook

Russian forces make gains, could see 'tactical victory' soon

Surging Russian forces overwhelmed two more villages in eastern Ukraine on Thursday and closed in on the city of Lysychansk amid a slow but systematic advancement through the industrial heart of Ukraine.

Lysychansk and small areas of sister city Severodonetsk represent the last hurdle in Russia's quest to control the Luhansk region. The fall of Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka comes one day after Russia rolled into the villages of Pidlisne and Myrna Dolyna.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, acknowledged the "threat of a tactical Russian victory (in the region) is there, but they haven’t done it yet."

The regions of Luhansk and Donetsk make up the Donbas region, home of Russian separatist "republic." After its failure to take the capital of Kyiv in the early days of the war, Russia has made no secret of its redirected efforts to control the Donbas.

Ukraine: US missile systems promise 'summer will be hot' for Russians

U.S. high-mobility missile artillery systems (HIMARS) have arrived in Ukraine, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said. The Ukrainian military has already undergone special training for the weapons in Europe, he said.

The U.S. provided ammunition that can hit targets from more than 40 miles away – valuable, but not the longer-range missiles sought by Ukraine that could reach close to 200 miles.

"Thank you to my colleague and friend @SecDef Lloyd J. Austin III for these powerful tools!" Reznikov said on Twitter. "Summer will be hot for Russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them."

Estonian PM Kaja Kallas says don’t sleep on Russia

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas says the West shouldn’t underestimate Russia’s military capabilities in Ukraine, saying Moscow is in it for the long haul as the war enters its fifth month.

Kallas said Europe should ensure that those committing war crimes and attempted genocide are prosecuted, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin escaped punishment for annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and supporting an insurgency in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region that killed over 14,000 people even before this year’s war began.

“I’ve heard talks that, you know, there is no threat anymore because they have exhausted themselves. No, they haven’t,” she said of the Russian military, which failed to take Kyiv in the early stages of the war and is now concentrating its firepower in the east.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Austin says US wants to see Russia's military capabilities weakened ...

(CNN) Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin insisted Monday that Russia was failing in its Ukraine incursion, with Austin explicitly saying that the US wants to see Russia's military capabilities weakened.

The two top US officials, speaking at a news conference at an undisclosed location in Poland near the Ukrainian border, made the comments following a trip to Kyiv, where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pledge US support in the war and announce that US diplomats would be returning to Ukraine.

"We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine," Austin said at the news conference. "So it has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability."

Blinken told reporters that Russian attempts to "subjugate Ukraine and take its independence" has "failed."

"Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence -- that has failed. It has sought to assert the power of its military and its economy. We, of course, are seeing just the opposite, a military that is dramatically underperforming and an economy ... as a result of sanctions that is in shambles," Blinken said.

"We don't know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene," he said.

The remarks are the latest in a series of public comments by US leaders challenging Putin's longevity as Russia's President and as the war in Ukraine has shifted to a new phrase in the east. US President Joe Biden and the White House have said the US is not officially calling for regime change and officials have also predicted a potentially drawn-out conflict.

Austin's comments also seem to represent a further extension of US goals, building on past comments from Blinken and other officials about Moscow's status at the end of the war.

Blinken last week said in a statement that the US' "continued efforts to ratchet up pressure on Putin's crumbling economy together will help weaken the Russian Government's position and further isolate them from the world until Russia ends its unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine."

The White House said Monday that Austin was talking about the US "objective to prevent" the Russian military from taking over Ukraine, and described it as consistent with the administration's long-held goal.

Asked about the defense secretary's comments, a National Security Council spokesperson said the US wants Ukraine to win and "that's why we're doing everything we can to help Ukraine defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to strengthen the Ukrainians' hands on the battlefield and at the negotiating table."

A senior State Department official told the traveling press Monday that such negotiations are "evolving," noting that "Russia's hand has been weakened as a result of these first two months, Ukraine's hand has been strengthened, that effects the positions that there would be in any negotiation," but "part of the problem is as best we can tell there is no effective negotiation going on right now."

US diplomats to return to Ukraine

The visit to Kyiv by Blinken and Austin makes them the highest-level US officials to have traveled to the country since the Russian invasion began in late February.

While in Kyiv, Blinken and Austin met with Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and Interior Minister Denys Monastrysky for an extended, roughly 90-minute bilateral meeting, the senior State Department official said.

As part of the resumed US diplomatic presence in Ukraine, diplomats will "start with day trips into the Lviv" and "will graduate to potentially other parts of the country and ultimately, to resume presence in Kyiv," according to a senior State Department official.

Blinken and Austin discussed the Biden administration's intention to provide $713 million in additional foreign military financing to Ukraine and allied European and Balkan partners, according to the senior State Department official and a senior Defense Department official. Part of that new military assistance funding will help Ukraine transition to NATO-capable systems, the State Department official said. The two secretaries also discussed deliveries of recent US military assistance to Ukraine and the ongoing training for Ukrainian soldiers, the officials said.

The post that has been without a confirmed ambassador since Biden on Monday announced that he will nominate Bridget Brink as US ambassador to Ukraine.The post that has been without a confirmed ambassador since Marie Yovanovitch was recalled in May 2019. Brink is the current US ambassador to Slovakia.

Zelensky's office issued a readout of the meeting on Monday, stressing the importance of the visit and saying the country "counts on the support of our partners."

"We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine," Zelensky said, according to the readout. "I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position. To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it."

Officials reiterate no involvement by US forces

The traveling US press corps did not travel with the secretaries to the Ukrainian capital. In a background briefing, the State and Defense officials made clear that the US military would still not be involved directly in the war.

"The President has been very clear there will be no US troops fighting in Ukraine and that includes the skies over Ukraine," the defense official said, adding, "This visit does not portend actual involvement by US forces."

In the Monday press briefing, Austin said the US believes Ukraine can win the war against Russia with "the right equipment and the right support."

"In terms of their ability to win -- the first step in winning is believing that you can win. And so, they believe that we can win. We believe that we -- they -- can win, if they have the right equipment, the right support, and we're going to do everything we can and continue to do everything we can," Austin told reporters.

He said, "we're going to push as hard as we can as quickly as we can to get them what they need", adding that the nature of the fight between Ukraine and Russia has evolved. He said "they're now focused on is a different type of terrain. So they need long-range fire."

While officials hailed the trip as a testament to the US commitment to Ukraine, they have also faced questions about why Biden did not make the trip himself.

"The President of the United States is somewhat singular, in terms of what travel would require. So it goes well beyond what a Cabinet secretary would or what virtually any other world leader would require," the State Department official noted.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the country earlier this month. Top officials from the EU and the Baltics have also visited Zelensky in Kyiv.

Fresh training for Ukrainians

Blinken and Austin's visit came as the first tranche of about 50 Ukrainians will complete artillery training in a country outside Ukraine, the defense official said. Another tranche of about 50 Ukrainians will also begin training soon, the defense official said.

"The first tranche of artillery training is complete," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Sunday who traveled to the region with the secretaries in a briefing in Poland. "We train soldiers that will go back, and their colleagues will be able to follow and be all in on systems."

Some of the howitzers included in the most recent military assistance package for Ukraine are already in the country, the defense official said. The howitzers are expected to be effective at this stage of the war as it's shifted to the Donbas, where the terrain is suited to "long range" weaponry, Kirby said.

Kirby noted the speed with which the military assistance shipments has arrived in Ukraine and said that the decision for how to deploy the assistance is up to the Ukrainians.

"It's not taking more than 24 to 48 hours depending on what's being shipped and the availability of ground transportation to get it into Ukraine," Kirby said. "As we've said before, when (the assistance is) transferred to Ukrainian hands, it's Ukrainian property, and we are not dictating to them how fast they get it to the front line or what units get them."

Military officials described to reporters the ongoing concern among NATO countries about the threat that Russia poses to them.

"Not just here in Poland, I think many of the countries are concerned about Russia's next steps," said Lt. Gen. John Stephen Kolasheski, the commanding general of V Corps in Poland. "And are very pleased to have the US military here working side by side -- helping them develop their capabilities and capacity. ... I think they are recognizing that Russia is currently and will be a threat in the future."

Opinion: As Ukraine dreams of joining the EU, its ex-communist ...

Cristian Gherasim is an analyst, consultant and journalist focusing on Eastern and Central European affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Crstn_Gherasim . The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) A few days into Ukraine's war, neighboring Romania quickly found itself as one of the main escape routes for those fleeing for their lives. I was on Romania's northern border, witnessing for the first time in my life the fallout of war, as tens of thousands of refugees crossed into my home country.

The bitterly cold weather was offset by the warm welcome refugees received, a short respite from the reality they were escaping. Those crossing the border were met by volunteers offering everything from a warm meal, blankets, hot drinks and medicine, to hygiene products, clothing and free transport to major cities in Romania. Some arrived late at night, soaking wet, and had to wait many long hours, most of the time well into the next day, to enter Romania. The freezing temperatures and daily snowfall made the long queues even harder to bear.

I saw women and children dropped off by husbands, fathers and partners, as able men were barred from leaving Ukraine, allowed only to accompany loved ones to the border and then return to fight. Couples reached for each other through the chain-linked border fence, in scenes that were at times surreal and cinematic.

For Eastern Europe, the Ukrainian tragedy strikes a deep chord -- not only because of its proximity but because stories of Soviet occupation are still entrenched in the public mindset. In places like Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, and the Baltics, those memories intertwine with the momentous change of becoming European Union member states.

Now, as the war forces the EU to reconsider its defense strategy in the biggest shake-up since the Cold War, Eastern Europe has proven more determined than ever not to let Russia get away with its aggression.

These former communist countries, now European Union member states, know all too well what their warmongering eastern neighbor is capable of. When Ukraine came under attack, these former Eastern Bloc members feared they could be next. They responded quickly, helping the millions of Ukrainians fleeing war and sending weapons to assist Kyiv in its fight. Such a unity in response could very well help rejuvenate the European Union.

That said, for a region that has sought to align itself with the West, that process has not been an easy one.

Now, Ukraine is looking westward quite eagerly. On the eve of Russia's invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky sought both EU and NATO membership. Those aspirations are being taken seriously—and have received a significant boost. Today, the European Union leaders agreed to grant Ukraine, along with Moldova, candidate status to join the EU.

"We want to support Ukraine in its European journey," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had said earlier this month, appearing alongside Zelensky in Kyiv.

As Ukraine pursues its hopes of joining the Western club, important lessons can be learned from the struggles of other former Soviet and Soviet-dominated countries that followed the same path.

In governance and wealth, an east-west divide lingers in the EU

It's been over 15 years since Bulgaria and Romania, Eastern Europe's newest EU member states, joined the bloc. The excitement of shrugging off their communist past ushered in a time of hopefulness and change. Yet, the reality remains complex.

Romania and Bulgaria witnessed a slow-but-steady rise in the standard of living. The same has been true in much of Eastern and Central Europe, where countries such as Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic or the Baltic states have grown their economies significantly.

But Romania and Bulgaria have lagged in effecting broader reforms. A culture of clientelist politics and fraud has marred the overall picture. For both countries, much-needed overhauls of the judicial systems still have yet to be accomplished. This reality is likely to make future EU enlargement a much stricter affair.

Within the EU, an east-west divide lingers. Bulgaria continues to be EU's poorest member, followed by Romania, both light years away from their significantly richer Western counterparts.

Painfully, Bulgaria and Romania have the EU's worst health care systems and the lowest life expectancy rates of all member states. Romania ($699 per inhabitant) and Bulgaria ($662) spend significantly less on their medical systems than all other EU countries, according to 2019 EU statistics. (By comparison, top performers such as Luxembourg, Sweden and Denmark, spend more than $5200 on health per citizen each year.)

Unity and liberalism in the face of war

But despite its economic woes, Eastern Europe has behaved admirably in handling the Ukrainian crisis. Calls to help Ukraine have echoed around the world, but in this region, action has been swift.

Ukraine's neighbors have led the way in welcoming refugees and offering assistance. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy , Eastern European nations top the list of countries committing aid to Ukraine, as a share of their own gross domestic product The small Baltic nation of Estonia has offered the most to Ukraine by GDP share; Latvia ranks second. Both dwarfed Germany by more than tenfold.

The nations of Eastern Europe are also among those pushing for a firm line on Russia. A debate has emerged in Western circles as to how this war -- and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- should be approached. On one side, some say the West will have to live with Russia long term, the war will end faster if Putin is offered an off-ramp, and it's best not to "humiliate" Russia in a way that could sow future conflict, as French President Emmanuel Macron argued . Others, including US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have said Russia should be thoroughly defeated. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, especially, has emerged as a strong voice in the latter camp.

Eastern European countries have also been sending critical weapons (including howitzers) to help Kyiv's forces. These shipments come as Ukraine implores its friends for more help, as calls to send more and heavier weapons grow louder, and as Germany's government in particular faces internal criticism for not doing more.

It is this very push that is slowly changing the face of the European Union. Eastern Europe is at its vanguard. In short, it has proven to be a moral leader in this crisis.

Hurdles ahead

But it's not all rainbows and sunshine.

The eastern wing of the EU has its own differences to mend, Hungary being the top example. The populist government in Budapest, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has been pushing for chummy relations with Putin.

Fortunately, Hungary remains an outlier, but its potential to disrupt EU affairs is significant. As Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University, explained to the Financial Times : "Because of how the EU works, even if Hungary is a small member state, Russia and China have a prospect of almost having a seat at the decision-making table in Brussels."

Hungary's ability to hold the EU captive was last seen when the 27-nation bloc tried to cut Russian oil purchases. Only after weeks of negotiations did the EU manage to enact sanctions, while exempting Hungary from the embargo.

Moldova a case in point

What challenges might lie ahead for Ukraine, as it hopes to join the Western club?

As a useful case in point, we can look to tiny Moldova, which has similar ambitions. The former Soviet republic, sandwiched between Ukraine and the EU, has recently been making headlines over the risk of getting caught in Russia's crosshairs. Moldova applied to join the EU along with Ukraine in the wake of Russia's latest aggression. But corruption and an unreformed judicial system are very much dashing Moldova's hope.

The European Commission has been sounding the alarm over the country's rampant corruption for quite some time. In addition to the overhaul of its governance, Moldova needs a drastic break with the oligarchic system, wherein rich and powerful people like Vladimir Plahotniuc, Anatolie Stati, Ilan Shor have made names for themselves.

The good news is that if Moldova and other aspiring nations manage to curb corruption and enact reforms, joining the EU will provide them with much-needed resources to further develop. For example, Romania and Bulgaria managed to absorb tens of billions of euros from Brussels -- money used to build new infrastructure and expand their economies.

EU membership has helped Eastern European countries stay on track. For future members, that looms as an added benefit. This is particularly significant for my home country of Romania, where European Commission supervision has helped keep up a functioning rule-of-law system.

Can Ukraine ever be part of the group?

The spotlight is on Eastern Europe now and is expected to remain so for a while.

The attention plays in Moldova's and Ukraine's favor. Besides their strategic importance, the EU needs their softer assets: It needs the heroism Ukrainians have shown as much as it needs Moldova's compassion in receiving the largest number of war refugees of any country in relation to its population size.

That said, it's unlikely Ukraine could join the EU as things stand currently. As France's Macron put it , it would likely take decades for Ukraine's EU bid to be approved. (Rather, Macron suggested , a "parallel European community" should be considered, presumably with less-strict membership criteria.) Unfortunately, Macron is right: Ukraine is a ways off from reaching EU levels of good governance.

But this crisis has indeed shifted the EU's center of gravity to the east, and for good reasons.

The region is coming of age politically. Thirty years after the fall of communism and 18 years after post-Soviet states began joining the EU, Eastern Europe now understands how to navigate the EU's complex institutions. Eastern Europeans hold an almost tragic sense of history, which gives them a better understanding of what could come next, as a war unfolds next door. Its economies are growing , and its leaders have a desire to stand up to aggressors and bullies like Russia and China. The Baltics, in particular, can boast strong stances against Putin and integration with NATO.

Whether the rest of the EU can learn from all of this remains to be seen. What is certain, though, is that a stronger Eastern Europe is better for the EU and the entire free world.

This article has been updated to reflect the news that European Union leaders granted Ukraine candidate status.


FINA votes to restrict transgender athletes from competing in elite ...

(CNN) The International Swimming Federation (FINA) has voted to approve a new policy that will restrict most transgender athletes from competing in elite women's aquatics competitions.

Swimming's world governing body approved the new "gender inclusion" policy on Sunday, after 71.5% of FINA's member federations voted in support at the FINA Extraordinary General Congress 2022.

The new gender inclusion policy, which is set to go into effect on June 20, 2022, says that male-to-female transgender athletes will only be eligible to compete in the women's categories in FINA competitions if they transition before the age of 12 or before they reach stage two on the puberty Tanner Scale.

The policy also says athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male gender-affirming hormone treatment will only be eligible to compete in women's competitions if the testosterone was used for less than a year in total, the treatment didn't take place during puberty and testosterone levels in serum are back to pre-treatment levels.

As a result of the vote, FINA said it will establish a new working group in order to develop open category events for athletes that do not meet the governing body's eligibility criteria for men's or women's categories.

Read More

FINA transgender ruling: Everything you need to know - CNN

(Reuters) World swimming's governing body FINA on Sunday voted for new eligibility rules that restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women's competitions.

The policy is the strictest from any Olympic sports body and effectively bars any transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in women's events.

FINA also agreed to work towards establishing an "open" category for some events that would ensure all swimmers would have the chance to compete.

The decision means that swimmers such as American Lia Thomas will not be able to compete in world championships or the Olympics.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Thomas became the first transgender NCAA champion in Division I history after winning the women's 500-yard freestyle earlier this year.

The success of Thomas, who competed on Pennsylvania's men's team for three years before transitioning and setting multiple program records with the women's team, provoked a wide-ranging debate about the issues of inclusivity and competitive fairness in swimming and sport in general.

Here is the background to FINA's decision and why this ruling is important to the world of sport.

Why did FINA take this decision?

There have been growing calls from former swimmers and coaches for the governing body to restrict the participation of transgender women in the sport, which intensified after Thomas's success at the US college championships.

Lia Thomas reacts after swimming the 100 Freestyle prelims at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 19, 2022.

Those who campaigned for change argued that people who have gone through male puberty have physical advantages and therefore women's competition needed to be protected.

Supporters of trans participation argue that not enough research has been done into the question of whether trans women have any advantage. Groups such as Athlete Ally have stated that FINA's new policy is "discriminatory, harmful, unscientific."

Is this a ban on all transgender swimmers in competition?

The ruling only applies to elite competitions run by FINA, such as their world championships, and competitions where FINA sets the eligibility criteria -- primarily the Olympic Games. It also impacts on who is eligible to set a world record in women's swimming.

It does not necessarily apply to national or regional competitions or lower-level meets. National federations could apply their own criteria for their competitions.

The ruling also only impacts on transgender athletes in women's competitions. Female-to-male transgender athletes (transgender men) will continue to be eligible to compete in men's races without any restriction.

The creation of an 'open category,' details of which have yet to be worked out, would also create a space for transgender women to compete.

What evidence did FINA produce before making this decision?

The new FINA policy came out of a working group that had three components -- an Athlete Group, a science and medicine group and a legal and human rights group, which FINA says studied "the best available statistical, scientific, and medical evidence concerning sex differences in sports performance, and any associated male sex-based advantage."

FINA said the Science Group was comprised of "independent experts in the fields of physiology, endocrinology, and human performance, including specialists in sex differences in human performance and in transgender medicine."

Delegates to the FINA congress in Budapest were told by members of the group that the evidence showed that going through male puberty gave trans women swimmers a physical advantage that remained even after hormone treatment as part of their transition.

What is the position of other sports?

In November, the International Olympic Committee issued a 'framework' on the issue, leaving eligibility decisions up to individual sports bodies, but adding that "until evidence determines otherwise, athletes should not be deemed to have an unfair or disproportionate competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status."

Last year, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first transgender athlete to compete in the Olympics in a different gender category than assigned at birth.

Many sports bodies have allowed transgender women to compete in women's events if they have lowered their testosterone levels to a certain point.

Last week, the International Cycling Union (UCI) tightened its rules by increasing the transition period for lower testosterone from 12 months to two years and halving the maximum level to 2.5 nmol/L.

The FINA ruling could increase pressure for similar moves inside other sports.

Can the decision be challenged?

The normal route for challenging the rulings of international sports bodies is through the Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Other sports will be watching any legal moves with keen interest.

2021 Olympics: Seeking balance in new rules for transgender ...

TOKYO – After the Tokyo Games, the International Olympic Committee will release updated framework on transgender athlete participation that seeks to balance fairness and inclusion. Given the competition here, the guidance could hardly be more anticipated.

For the first time in the nearly two decades since the IOC first took a position on the question, openly transgender athletes are competing in the Olympics.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard has drawn much of the focus, and harassment, for the way the IOC includes transgender athletes. The 43-year-old has become an unwilling participant in a cultural debate about what is fair and whether transgender women have an advantage over their cisgender counterparts.

Canadian soccer player Quinn is the other out transgender athlete competing here, but Quinn's participation doesn’t bring the same scrutiny because they were assigned female at birth and play a team sport.

Though the numbers of transgender athletes participating at any level, let alone an Olympic level, are miniscule, the IOC’s framework stands to have significant influence not just for those athletes but for the sports federations that will take their cues from what the IOC decides.

With little data to determine what, if any, advantages transgender athletes – and women in particular – have, the IOC will update its current consensus statement, which mandates transgender women undergo hormone therapy for at least a year, among other requirements.

“I have to think just looking at the arc of history in sport, even with the hot politics of the issue, the IOC is going to have to find a way to actually balance inclusiveness and fairness,” said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor who studies sport governance at the University of Colorado. “It’s not easy, and maybe nobody will be happy with what they do, but choosing one over the other in the form of a ban seems socially and politically untenable.

“That just doesn’t seem to square with where the world is at and where sport is at.”

Despite that, the discussion in sport has ranged from full exclusion of transgender women – as World Rugby now does – to full inclusion without mitigation of any sex-linked characteristics.

The less caustic part of the debate revolves around whether transgender women who have gone through male puberty retain any advantage and what is needed to mitigate that. Holding on to hard-fought gains for their own inclusion and place in sports, women’s advocates argue for protection of the category.

“This is a large and difficult and complex topic,” said IOC medical director Richard Budgett. “There are no IOC rules and regulations around transgender participation. That depends on each international federation, so Laurel Hubbard is a woman and is competing under the rules of her federation. And we have to pay tribute to her courage and tenacity in actually competing and qualifying for the Games.

“When it comes to the advantages and disadvantages, there’s always more to learn.”

Regardless of the debate, the guidance affects a small number of transgender athletes. Since the IOC released its first consensus statement in 2003, women have had more than 29,000 entries to the Games from 2004-18, according to stats from Olympic historian Bill Mallon.

Cisgender women, whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth, have claimed more than 2,000 medals over eight Olympics in that time.

Women make up 49% of the roughly 11,000 athletes competing in Tokyo.

“Women athletes have to understand this is not an attack on women’s athletes,” said Canadian cyclist Kristen Worley, who was the first transgender athlete to be subject to the IOC’s 2003 policy. “It’s not an attack on women’s sports.”

With little science comparing transgender women athletes to their cisgender counterparts, the IOC is tasked with offering a basic framework that international federations can use to make rules specific to their sport and even event.

“The IOC or any sporting organization has to make policy based on the data that exist,” said Joanna Harper, a researcher at Loughborough University in London who pioneered studies on transgender female athletes. “They have to do the best they can with the information they have at hand. I hope we can get more and better data in the future, and we will come up with better policies in the future as a result of the data.”

'Sexually and psychologically violated'

Olympic sports have a long history of gender verification, including through visual examination of women’s nude bodies. From the Cold War in the 1960s up until the Sydney Olympics in 2000, female athletes were subject to chromosome testing.

Against that backdrop, the IOC released its first consensus statement on transgender athletes in 2003, requiring sex reassignment surgery including “external genitalia changes and gonadectomy,” legal recognition of their gender and at least two years of hormone therapy.

Seeking to compete in the 2008 Olympics, Worley was the first to be subject to the policy, saying a room of men – some of whom were sport officials and not medical professionals – “sexually and psychologically violated” her.

“Because the IOC handed down these policies, it was assumed that somehow I was a threat to sport,” Worley said. “There’s no science and research to any of this.”

In 2015, she challenged the policy at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, arguing it had violated her human rights. The case concluded with Cycling Canada, Ontario Cycling Association and the Union Cycliste Internationale agreeing to review their policies.

Around that time, the IOC was working on revising its consensus statement. Its latest iteration, released in 2015, requires transgender women to declare that identity for at least four years and receive hormone therapy that maintains their testosterone below a specified level for 12 months.

By that point, the NCAA and World Athletics had policies dating from 2011 for allowing transgender women to participate with hormone therapy.

“Trans women weren’t taking over sports, weren’t taking over World Athletics. They weren’t taking over any sport in the NCAA,” said Harper, who advised the IOC on the 2015 statement.

“At that point, the IOC certainly felt pretty comfortable in terms of coming up with new specifications.”

'The science is slender'

As the IOC and international federations look for data to guide their policies, they continue to run into one problem: there isn’t much.

Studies comparing transgender women to cisgender women are rare. Harper, herself a distance runner before and after she transitioned, released one of the first in 2015, comparing race times for eight transgender distance runners before and after their transition.

She found the runners had slowed significantly but that they stayed the same relative to their competitors. So if a runner was faster than 82% of her peers before transitioning, she was about the same in the female category.

Harper acknowledged in that study that the science supporting either policy is slim.

“The science is still in its infancy,” Harper said. “The science is slender any way you slice it, whether you’re trying to justify inclusion or exclusion.”

A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last year compared fitness test results of 29 transgender men and 46 transgender women in the U.S. Air Force. It found that transgender women performed 31% more push-ups and 15% more sit-ups in one minute and ran 1.5 miles 21% faster than cisgender women.

After two years of hormone therapy, the push-up and sit-up advantage disappeared, but the transgender women were still 12% faster than cisgender women. The study also found that before hormone therapy, the transgender women did fewer push-ups than cisgender men.

“We do need more evidence actually. It’s easy to compare cisgender males to cisgender women in performance. But it’s just not as simple as that,” Budgett said. “If it were as simple as that, then clearly it would be unfair. But there is a whole effect of that transitioning that is going to be different in different individuals and can help make it fair enough that you can have meaningful sport and protect all the women who are taking part in that sport.”

A systematic review of the literature published this year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found hormone therapy reduced hemoglobin levels to those on par with cisgender women. It reduced strength, lean body mass and muscle area, though those values remained above cisgender women after 36 months of hormone therapy.

Harper, who was one of five authors on that study, pointed to grip strength. While transgender women retained a 17% advantage over cisgender women, that was less than the 57% advantage cisgender men had.

“That’s not unreasonable,” Harper said. “You’ve got to put trans women into one category or another.”

Some women’s groups, including Save Women’s Sports in the United States and Fair Play for Women in the United Kingdom, oppose transgender inclusion, putting them out of step with the IOC’s current efforts.

A U.S.-based group led by several prominent Olympians, including Nancy Hogshead-Makar and Donna De Varona, advocates for what it calls a middle-ground approach of full inclusion if a transgender woman transitions before puberty, then seeking ways for inclusion with mitigation of any retained advantages if a woman transitions after puberty.

“The science is still coming in, and it is coming in on the side of more needs to be done for somebody to unwind that sex-linked advantage,” Hogshead-Makar said. “We want to follow the science and find out how much time and how much winding has to be done in order to … have it be fair that they are included in the girls and women’s category.”

Budgett said more data is needed comparing transgender female athletes to their cisgender counterparts rather than data comparing men to women.

“There’s always more science, and there’s quite a large amount of research being done at the moment to ascertain the residual advantage after going through male puberty, but you have to weigh that against all the other disadvantages of going through transition,” Budgett said. “There are lots of aspects of physiology and anatomy and the mental side that contribute to an elite performance, and it’s very difficult to say, yes, she has an advantage because she went through male puberty when there’s so many other factors to take into account. It’s not simple.”

Getting it right

The IOC expects to release its new framework in the coming months to help guide international federations on how they can set policies for their sport. One thing is clear – nuance will be key.

Transgender athletes are not a monolith, and when and how they transition might have bearing on considerations sports organizations need to make. Additionally, all signs are pointing to a sport-by-sport approach and perhaps even more variation within a sport.

What works for archery and shooting, for instance, is quite likely to be different from weightlifting or track & field. Even within a sport it could vary. Requirements for a distance runner might need to be different from those for a shot putter, for example.

Safety also would have to be considered, especially in contact and combat sports.

“We want fairness. I think in competitive sport, there should be mitigation,” said Kirsti Miller, a former international-level athlete in Australia who has become an advocate since transitioning. “It shouldn’t be on a strict testosterone level. It’s got to be on an individual base.”

On a sport-by-sport basis, federations will need data to set boundaries designed to mitigate any retained advantages transgender athletes might have while preserving fairness for women.

But even that ignores the realities of sport, which already accept and even celebrate advantages – in athletes’ physiology, primarily, but also in environment and access to resources.

“The notion of fairness and advantage in sports is based to me on the fact that all elite sports are about advantage,” said Eric Vilain, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children’s National Hospital. “The notion that in sports there should be a level playing field just for transgender athletes would be a complete double standard, in my opinion, because there is no such level playing field.”

While much of the science has yet to be worked out – leaving the debate to a hot-button cultural issue – figuring out how to address this is similar to the Paralympics, Pielke argued. The Games figure out how to classify athletes, and this is no different.

For an Olympic movement that was created for and by white men and has slowly over the decades grown to be more diverse, making this into a classification decision instead of a cultural flashpoint can help the IOC achieve its balance of fairness and inclusion.

“As long as sport is organized around two genders,” Pielke said, “then it’s incumbent on sports organizations to find a way to fit everybody into the gender category that they’re recognized in broader society.”

World Athletics president calls future of women's sport 'fragile ...

(CNN) The president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, reportedly said that the integrity and future of women's sport is "fragile" and defended his governing body's rules on testosterone. His comments came days after American swimmer Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship last week.

"The integrity of women's sport if we don't get this right, and actually the future of women's sport, is very fragile," Coe said in remarks at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Belgrade, according to The Times of London.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Thomas last week became the first out transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after finishing first in the women's 500-yard freestyle event.

Thomas, who previously swam for the men's team at UPenn, has been the target of intense scrutiny in the US as many states have moved to limit the participation of transgender women in women's sports. Her success has sparked questions, especially in right-wing media and among Republican politicians , about what makes for fair competition and who gets to be counted as a woman.

According to World Athletics rules, which govern track and field events -- and do not apply to swimming -- a transgender woman must demonstrate that she has had testosterone levels continuously below 5 nmol per liter for a period of at least 12 months to be allowed to compete, and must keep those levels "for so long as she wishes to maintain her eligibility to compete in the female category of competition."

But some athletes do not fit neatly into these rules. The governing body considers an athlete to be transgender if the person's "gender identity ... is different from the sex designated to them at birth." But the rules do not specify how, and when, an athlete should prove the sex they were assigned at birth. It is also unclear whether the rules apply to athletes whose gender is nonbinary. The organization has a separate set of rules for athletes with differences of sex development (who are sometimes known as intersex).

"There is no question to me that testosterone is the key determinant in performance," Coe said.

"Look at the nature of 12 or 13-year-old girls. I remember my daughters would regularly outrun male counterparts in their class but as soon as puberty kicks in that gap opens and it remains. Gender cannot trump biology," Coe said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

But a 2017 study in the journal Sports Medicine found "no direct or consistent research" of trans people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers.

"You can't be oblivious to public sentiment, of course not," he said. "But science is important."

"If I wasn't satisfied with the science that we have and the experts that have been working on this for a long time, this would be a very different landscape," Coe said, according to The Telegraph.

CNN has reached out to World Athletics for comment on Coe's statements but has yet to receive a reply.

Thomas has not spoken publicly since an interview with the SwimSwam podcast in December. In that interview, she nodded in the direction of the controversy but did not engage.

"We expected there would be some measure of pushback by some people. Quite to the extent that it has blown up, we weren't fully expecting," she said. "I just don't engage with it. It's not healthy for me to read it and engage with it at all, and so I don't."

There are several different hormones that are naturally produced at a range of levels in people of all genders and sexes. Sensitivity to hormones can also affect the development of anatomy and may cause anatomical variations that are not associated with typical binary categories of male or female. There is debate in the scientific community as to whether androgenic hormones like testosterone are useful markers of athletic advantage.

For over a decade, the NCAA has required transgender women to be on testosterone suppression treatment for a year before they are allowed to compete on a women's team.

But in January, the NCAA said it would take a sport-by-sport approach to its rules on transgender athletes' participation and defer to each sport's national governing body.

USA Swimming then released a set of stricter guidelines that require elite trans women athletes to have at least three continuous years of testosterone levels below 5 nmol per liter, and to prove to a panel of medical experts that they do not have a competitive advantage over cisgender women.

The new rule threatened to make Thomas ineligible to compete at the NCAA championships. However, the NCAA said those rules will be instituted in a phased approach over the coming seasons rather than in the middle of the current season.

Last week, Reka Gyorgy of Virginia Tech wrote in an open letter published on the website of Swimming World magazine and shared by Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw on Twitter that it was "disrespectful" for the NCAA to allow Thomas to compete against what Gygory referred to as "biologically female (swimmers)," using a term that does not have one standard medical definition, and is sometimes used to suggest -- contrary to science -- that there are characteristics shared by all cisgender women that differentiate them from all transgender women.

"I'd like to point out that I respect and fully stand with Lia Thomas; I am convinced that she is no different than me or any other D1 swimmer who has woken up at 5am her entire life for morning practice. She has sacrificed family vacations and holidays for a competition," Gyorgy wrote.

"She has pushed herself to the limit to be the best athlete she could be. She is doing what she is passionate about and deserves that right. On the other hand, I would like to critique the NCAA rules that allow her to compete against us," she added.

UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas dives during the 100 Freestyle prelims at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 19th, 2022 at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta.

After Thomas' victory last week, several news sites had alleged that the three college swimmers beaten by Thomas staged a protest on the podium.

However, Erica Sullivan, Thomas' closest competitor, clarified in an Instagram post that she had been subjected to "false claims on Right Wing media," and that the image, where she was posing with fellow Tokyo Olympic competitors, had been taken out of context. In the same post, she also published an image of her shaking Thomas' hand.

In an opinion piece for Newsweek, she wrote: "I have been given a platform to advocate for my community, and I can't sit silently by as I see a fellow swimmer's fundamental rights be put up for debate. All swimmers embody a diverse set of identities and characteristics. What makes us each unique also contributes to our success in the pool.

"Yet no one questions the validity of how cisgender athletes' unique traits and skills, or who they are, contribute to their success. However, University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas has been unfairly targeted for just that -- for being who she is, a transgender woman.

"Like anyone else in this sport, Lia has trained diligently to get to where she is and has followed all of the rules and guidelines put before her. Like anyone else in this sport, Lia doesn't win every time.

"And when she does, she deserves, like anyone else in this sport, to be celebrated for her hard-won success, not labeled a cheater simply because of her identity," she said.

Transgender and non-binary players can choose men's or women's ...

(Reuters) Transgender and non-binary footballers can now decide themselves whether to play for a men's or women's team instead of being bound by personal identification data, the German Football Association (DFB) said on Thursday.

It said the ruling was included in the DFB match regulation for amateurs, the junior regulation and the futsal rulebook.

"At its core this ruling says that players with a personal (gender) status that is 'diverse' or 'no reference' and players who change their gender can take their own decision whether they will be issued an eligibility to play for a men's or women's team," the DFB said.

"This is also the case for transgender footballers who can now change (teams) at a moment they decide or can stay on at the team they have been playing for."

Until now it was the gender named in the personal identification documents that determined the eligibility of footballers from junior level upwards and whether they would play for a men's or a women's team, according to the DFB.

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