PRAGUE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday called on the EU to strengthen cooperation against Russia.

"We must strengthen our cooperation to help each other, provide all Europeans with adequate energy guarantees. Russia must not succeed in its effort to force Europeans into energy poverty or even a complete lack of energy," Zelenskyy said in a video address to an informal EU Council meeting.

The EU leaders on Friday met in the Czech capital Prague to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, rising energy costs, and their economic ramifications.

"The whole of Europe is (being) placed in the conditions of a severe price crisis, when through the manipulation of the energy market Russia achieves unprecedented pressure on the standard of living of the absolute majority of Europeans," Zelenskyy said.

He added that the defense of freedom and democracy must never cease.

"We must invest now in our defense, in our security, in our cooperation as much as possible, so that anyone in the world who might even have a thought to start an anti-European path will forever be aware that the strength of European unity is insuperable," he urged.