Polish parliament calls for Ukraine's rapid EU accession

In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the lower house of Poland's parliament, the Sejm, called on EU institutions and member states to enable Ukraine to join the bloc as quickly as possible.

In the resolution, MP's also expressed admiration for the Ukrainians' unerring stance in the fight against "beastly" aggression.

The resolution also drew attention to the fact that "the army and society of Ukraine are putting up heroic resistance for a further day against the unprovoked and unjustified military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, representing one of the most powerful threats to European and global security.

"The residents of Ukraine can count on the full support of Polish society," the resolution continued. "The Sejm of the Republic of Poland expresses gratitude to the government of the Republic of Poland, local governments, non-governmental organisation and millions of people who are helping refugees and residents of areas under attack."

Polish lawmakers said they believed that "the only possible and necessary response to the cruel aggression from Russia is a definite and multilateral reaction of the international community," and that they stood "clearly and concretely for Ukraine's application for accession to the European Union."

The Sejm called on the European Council to initiate procedures for giving Ukraine EU candidate country status and on the European Commission to prepare a road map of accession negotiations and for Ukraine's integration into the EU.

The document went on to call on "all EU institutions and member states to enable Ukraine to join the European Community as soon as possible" as well as to include the country in the bloc's Recovery and Resilience Facility and to establish a separate fund for repairing war damage.

Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine last Thursday morning, invading from the north, east and south as well as hitting targets inside the country in missile attacks and air raids.

At an extraordinary summit in Brussels on the same day, the EU agreed to impose new sanctions on Russia's financial, energy and transport sectors, and to introduce export controls. The bloc also blacklisted more Russian nationals for their involvement in the attack on Ukraine and added restrictions in its visa policy towards Russians.

The US, Canada and the United Kingdom have also announced their own sets of tougher sanctions on Moscow.