I READ with interest that the EU Commission has agreed that Ukraine should be granted candidate status, another step towards the country joining the European Union (‘War ravaged Ukraine moves a step closer to EU membership’, The Yorkshire Post, June 18.)

Many readers will know that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is as a direct result of the people of Ukraine deposing the then pro-Putin President Viktor Yanukovych in the Maidan Revolution in 2014.

They demanded distancing their country from Putin’s Russia, closer ties with the West and to join the EU as an independent, sovereign country, so it is good to see that progress is being made on their final demand.

Boris Johnson speaks to members of the media after arriving at RAF Brize Norton, west of London having returned from Kyiv in Ukraine, on June 18, 2022. Photo by Joe Giddens / POOL / AFP.

With this in mind it seemed somewhat strange that later on Friday we learnt that our Prime Minister had pulled out of a “levelling up” conference in Yorkshire to fly (at the taxpayers’ expense) to Kyiv for a photo opportunity with President Zelensky.

Strange because our Prime Minister, who constantly tries to pick fights with the EU in a desperate attempt to prop up his popularity at home, is prepared to go to such extraordinary lengths to be photographed with a man leading his country in an existential struggle for the right to join the European Union.

The greatest irony could be that when Ukraine joins the EU, President Zelensky could find he walks straight into a trade war with the UK brought about by the UK’s unilateral shredding of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Who will Mr Johnson turn to then for his

Anti-EU Boris Johnson's ironic trip to see President Zelensky - Yorkshire Post Letters