Ukraine president signs amendment on NATO, EU membership

 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, center, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, right, and parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy show the newly signed Constitutional amendment to joining the EU and NATO in Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019. 

Poroshenko, who is running for a second five-year term in the March 31 election, told Verkhovna Rada that he aims to make a formal bid to join the EU by 2023. He acknowledged, however, that Ukraine needs to come a “long way” to meet the criteria of joining both institutions.

European Council President Donald Tusk addressed the parliament in Ukrainian, declaring that “there is no Europe without Ukraine.” He pledged that the EU would never acknowledge Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and would keep its sanctions against Moscow.