Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Thanks EU for Help, Set to Press Leaders for Jets

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the European Parliament, during his second international trip since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Brussels, Belgium February 9, 2023. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the European Parliament, during his second international trip since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Brussels, Belgium February 9, 2023. (Reuters)
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Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Thanks EU for Help, Set to Press Leaders for Jets

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the European Parliament, during his second international trip since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Brussels, Belgium February 9, 2023. (Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy addresses the European Parliament, during his second international trip since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Brussels, Belgium February 9, 2023. (Reuters)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked the European Union and its citizens on Thursday for the help Ukraine has been receiving to defend itself against the Russian invasion, before joining a summit of the bloc's leaders to ask for more weapons.

Having won promises of Western battle tanks in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials are now focused on trying to secure the supply of longer-range rockets and fighter jets.

But Zelenskiy did not mention Ukraine's demand for jets in his speech in the European Parliament, which seemed less aimed at pressing politicians than ensuring support from ordinary EU citizens suffering from steep inflation partly driven by the fallout from the war.

"Thank you," Zelenskiy said in a speech to EU lawmakers, who gave him a long standing ovation, cheering and applauding, some of them wearing the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag.

"I would like to thank you, all of you, who have been helping our people, our ordinary citizens, our resettled people here who called on their leaders to increase and enhance their support," he said, mentioning anyone from teachers and students to energy grid workers.

While Zelenskiy is unlikely to leave with immediate pledges to satisfy his request for jets, the visit gives him a chance, later in the day, to press his case in person with all the EU's 27 national leaders for the first time since Russia invaded his country on Feb. 24, 2022.

"We are defending ourselves in the battlefield, we Ukrainians, together with you," he said, adding that his country was fighting the "biggest anti-European force of the modern world".

Ukraine, which wants to join the EU, is also pushing for membership talks to start within months.

"A victorious Ukraine will be part of the European Union that will prevail," Zelenskiy said.

While some EU member countries are keen to give Ukraine the morale boost that would come with starting talks to join the bloc, others are much more cautious.

They have stressed would-be members need to meet a range of criteria - such as cracking down on corruption - before they can even start negotiations.



Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)

A huge power outage hit large parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday, paralyzing traffic, grounding flights, trapping people in elevators and leaving power operators scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.

Some hospitals halted routine work and the two countries' governments convened emergency cabinet meetings, with officials initially saying a possible cyber-attack could not be ruled out. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe, and the cause could not immediately be established.

Reuters witnesses said power had started returning to the Basque country and Barcelona areas of Spain in the early afternoon, a few hours after the outage began. It was not clear when power might be more widely restored.

Hospitals in Madrid and Cataluna in Spain suspended all routine medical work but were still attending to critical patients, using backup generators. Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down and retail businesses shut.

The Bank of Spain said electronic banking was functioning "adequately" on backup systems, though residents also reported ATM screens had gone blank.

"I'm in a data center, and everything has gone off. All the alarms popped up, and now we're with the groups, waiting to find out what happened," said Barcelona resident and engineer Jose Maria Espejo, 40.

In a video posted on X, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida urged city residents to minimize their journeys and stay where they were, adding: "It is essential that the emergency services can circulate."

In Portugal, water supplier EPAL said water supplies could also be disrupted, and queues formed at stores by people rushing to purchase emergency supplies like gaslights, generators and batteries.

The main Portuguese electricity utility, EDP, said it had told customers it had no forecast for when the energy supply would be "normalized", Publico newspaper said. It warned it could take several hours.

Parts of France also suffered a brief outage. RTE, the French grid operator, said it had moved to supplement power to some parts of northern Spain after the outage hit.

Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams in Madrid city center as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.

Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.

One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.

Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.

Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.

Lisbon's subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.

A source at Portugal's TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.

Such widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.

In 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and as far as Morocco.