Ukraine is having a tougher than usual time at the moment.
On the frontlines, the battle for Pokrovsk is raging, and it does not look like Ukraine is winning it. Nor do things look good for the country’s energy resilience after months of an intensive Russian air campaign targeting key infrastructure. According to the UN, this could trigger another major humanitarian crisis in the already war-ravaged country.
The geopolitical picture looks equally grim. The delivery of long-range Tomahawk missiles, sought by Kyiv for months now, has again been ruled out by US president Donald Trump. What’s more, after his meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in South Korea on October 30, Trump said that the US and China would work together to end the war in Ukraine.
The possibility of a productive collaboration between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on peace in Ukraine, let alone its successful conclusion, is remote.
And even if there was a Washington-Beijing sponsored deal, it would not be in Ukraine’s favour. This became clear a few days later. During a high-profile two-day visit of the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, to China on November 3 and 4, Beijing showed no signs of backing out of its partnership with Russia which is key to sustaining the Kremlin’s war machine.
Nor does the continuing delay in approving an EU loan to Ukraine worth €60 billion and backed by frozen Russian assets bode well for Kyiv. The disbursement of €1.8 billion from the EU’s Ukraine facility and a commitment by Germany to increase its aid to Kyiv next year by €3 billion are, of course, welcome demonstrations of European support. But they are not of the magnitude required to plug Ukraine’s budget deficit.
Given all this bad news, it was no surprise that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, leapt at what, on the surface, looked like good news in the European commission’s latest assessment of Kyiv’s progress towards EU membership. Yet, more careful analysis of the 2025 commission report suggests that positive news, if any, is in the presentation, not the underlying facts.
The European commission notes in its report that Ukraine has made progress in all of the 33 different chapters of the accession negotiations.
That the commission found no instances of standstill or backsliding is as remarkable as it is commendable given that the country has achieved this in the shadow of Russia’s aggression since February 2022.
Yet, in many areas, progress is modest at best. For example, in relation to the fight against corruption the commission reports that recent developments “cast doubts on Ukraine’s commitment to its anti-corruption agenda.” This is primarily a reference to attempts by Zelensky’s government to limit the independence of the country’s anti-corruption institutions. These triggered massive public protests last summer and forced a partial government climb-down. Concerningly, the commission also notes “political pressure on anti-corruption activists” and “harassment and intimidation of journalists”, including “cases of strategic lawsuits … related to journalistic investigations”.
Closely related, the report laments that a “public procurement law was not adopted” and that a public-private partnership law that was passed by parliament has “significant gaps vis-à-vis EU standards.”
Regarding the fight against serious and organised crime, the commission similarly states that “the freezing and confiscation of criminal assets remain very limited.” Other shortcomings concern limited progress on decentralisation, lack of transparency in recruitment to civil service positions, the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, and the persistence of torture and ill treatment in the prison and detention system.
On the one hand, it is not surprising that these shortcomings exist. Ukraine has been fighting an existential war for almost four years. The country has only been a candidate country for EU membership since June 2022. Accession negotiations only started in December 2023.
Yet it is the persistence of these highly visible, easily exploitable problems related to fundamental values of the EU that are causing concern. Almost identical issues were raised in the European commission’s opinion on Ukraine’s membership application in 2022, in its 2023 report on the country’s alignment with EU norms and laws, and in last year’s progress report on the accession negotiations.
It may be an exaggeration to claim that Ukraine is experiencing a turn towards a more and more autocratic style of presidential government under Zelensky.
But there clearly are signs that war-time politics in Kyiv has a darker side that does little to bolster the country’s credentials for EU membership. This provides easy ammunition for Ukraine’s detractors inside the EU. Chief among them is Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, whose obstruction tactics have frustrated European commission efforts to progress on accession negotiations with Ukraine.
In addition to Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have also defied the commission on the implementation of an updated trade deal with Ukraine. The intra-EU opposition to Ukraine has now been further strengthened by the formation of a Eurosceptic, hard-right populist government coalition in the Czech Republic.
The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, continues to insist that membership for Ukraine by 2030 “is a realistic goal”. The EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, however, was more guarded. She noted that “future accession treaties will need to contain stronger safeguards” to “reassure our citizens in the Member States that the integrity of our Union and democratic values are ensured, also after the accession.” In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that she did not “want to go down as the commissioner bringing in the Trojan horses”.
This sentiment was also reflected in the European commission’s general report on enlargement that accompanied the individual country reports. “Future Accession Treaties”, the commission stated, “will need to contain stronger safeguards against backsliding on commitments taken in the accession negotiations, as well as requirements for the new Member States to continue to safeguard and make irreversible their track record on rule of law.” Given the less than flattering detail in Ukraine’s 2025 progress report, this suggests that the tough times for Ukraine are likely to continue, and not just in its war with Russia.
As the future of the EU and Ukraine have become ever more closely intertwined since February 2022, there is also a bigger question for the Union here — how to balance holding the line on its membership standards and enabling Ukraine to hold the line against Russia. The answer to this question will have profound implications for Europe well beyond the end of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on November 5, 2025.
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