Russia may 'intensify' its attacks soon, Kyiv warns

KYIV－Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia is likely to intensify its campaign this week, as Kyiv awaits a historic decision from the European Union on its bid for candidate status.

Nearly three months after Russia launched a special military operation in his country, Zelensky said there had been "few such fateful decisions for Ukraine" as the one it expects from the EU this week.

"Only a positive decision is in the interests of the whole of Europe," he said in an address on Sunday.

Moscow's forces have been pummeling eastern Ukraine for weeks as they try to seize the Donbas region.

On Friday, Brussels backed Kyiv's bid for EU candidate status after the heads of the bloc's biggest members－France, Germany and Italy－paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine could join the list of countries vying for membership as early as this week, when member state leaders meet for a Brussels summit.

But EU officials have cautioned that even with candidacy status, membership could take years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow had "nothing against" Ukraine's EU membership, but a Kremlin spokesman said Russia was closely following Kyiv's bid.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg meanwhile warned that the conflict could grind on "for years" and urged Western countries to be ready to offer long-term military, political and economic aid, Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported.

Ukraine has repeatedly urged Western countries to step up their deliveries of arms, despite warnings from Russia that it could trigger a wider conflict.

Russia's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it had launched missile strikes during the prior 24 hours, with one attack on a top-level Ukrainian military meeting near the city of Dnipro killing "more than 50 generals and officers".

On the battlefield, Ukraine said on Monday that it had lost control of a village adjacent to the eastern industrial city of Severodonetsk, the center of weeks of fierce fighting.

Also on Monday, Russia's Foreign Ministry demanded the immediate lifting of Lithuania's "openly hostile" restrictions on the rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Moscow's exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania and Poland.

"If in the near future cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the territory of the Russian Federation through Lithuania is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests," the ministry said in a statement.

Agencies via Xinhua