By OLEK­SAN­DR STA­SHEVSKYI and CIA­RAN Mc­QUIL­LAN-As­so­ci­at­ed Press 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Eu­rope pushed Mon­day to sharp­en and ex­pand its re­sponse to Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine, with Swe­den poised to fol­low Fin­land in seek­ing mem­ber­ship of NA­TO and Eu­ro­pean Union of­fi­cials work­ing to res­cue pro­posed sanc­tions that would tar­get the Russ­ian oil ex­ports help­ing fi­nance the war. 

On the ground, Rus­sia saw more set­backs in its of­fen­sive in the east, where Ukrain­ian de­fend­ers are fight­ing des­per­ate­ly against at­tempt­ed ad­vances and even suc­cess­ful­ly rolling back the front lines in some ar­eas. 

In a small but sym­bol­ic boost for Ukrain­ian morale, a pa­trol of sol­diers record­ed tri­umphant video of their push to the Russ­ian bor­der in the re­gion of Kharkiv. Ukrain­ian forces have al­ready dri­ven Russ­ian troops back from the re­gion’s cap­i­tal, re­duc­ing their abil­i­ty to hit the bat­tered city with ar­tillery. 

As fight­ing raged, in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts to re­spond to Rus­sia’s ag­gres­sion con­tin­ued to pick up pace. Swe­den’s gov­ern­ment was ex­pect­ed to an­nounce its in­ten­tion to seek NA­TO mem­ber­ship lat­er Mon­day — fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar de­ci­sion from its neigh­bor Fin­land. Those are seis­mic de­vel­op­ments for the Nordic coun­tries that have tra­di­tion­al­ly po­si­tioned them­selves as mil­i­tar­i­ly “non­aligned.” 

An en­large­ment of NA­TO to in­clude Swe­den and Fin­land would be a se­ri­ous blow to Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin, who sees the al­liance’s post-Cold War ex­pan­sion in East­ern Eu­rope as a threat. Putin has cit­ed it among his rea­sons for at­tack­ing Ukraine. His spokesman, Dmit­ry Peskov, said Mon­day that Rus­sia “will look care­ful­ly at what the con­se­quences will be of Fin­land and Swe­den join­ing NA­TO.” 

NA­TO’s sec­re­tary-gen­er­al, Jens Stoltenberg, has said the mem­ber­ship process for both Fin­land and Swe­den could be very quick — though mem­ber Turkey has cast some doubt over the move. 

Swedish Prime Min­is­ter Mag­dale­na An­der­s­son said Mon­day that join­ing the 30-mem­ber mil­i­tary al­liance was her coun­try’s best de­fense in the face of Russ­ian be­hav­ior. 

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have no rea­son to be­lieve that the trend (of Rus­sia’s ac­tions) will re­verse in the fore­see­able fu­ture,” she said. 

As well as send­ing mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine, Eu­rope is al­so work­ing to choke off fund­ing for the Krem­lin’s war, by re­duc­ing the bil­lions of dol­lars it spends on im­ports of Russ­ian en­er­gy. 

But a pro­posed EU em­bar­go on im­ports of Russ­ian oil faces op­po­si­tion from a small group of coun­tries led by Hun­gary, which is one of a num­ber of land­locked coun­tries that are high­ly de­pen­dent on the im­ports, along with the Czech Re­pub­lic and Slo­va­kia. Bul­gar­ia al­so has reser­va­tions. 

“We will do our best in or­der to de­block the sit­u­a­tion,” EU for­eign pol­i­cy chief Josep Bor­rell said. “I can­not en­sure that it is go­ing to hap­pen be­cause po­si­tions are quite strong.” 

West­ern weapons de­liv­er­ies to Ukraine and sanc­tions against Rus­sia have helped the out­gunned and out­num­bered Ukrain­ian forces slow the Russ­ian ad­vance — and even turn it back in places. 

Stoltenberg, the NA­TO chief, said Sun­day the war “is not go­ing as Moscow had planned.” 

“Ukraine can win this war,” he added — a re­mark­able as­sess­ment that would have been un­think­able for many on the eve of the in­va­sion. 

But Rus­sia has been plagued by a se­ries of set­backs in the war, most glar­ing­ly in its fail­ure to over­run Kyiv, the cap­i­tal, in the ear­ly stages of its Feb. 24 in­va­sion. Since then, much of the fight­ing has shift­ed to the Don­bas, Ukraine’s east­ern in­dus­tri­al heart­land. 

De­ter­min­ing a full pic­ture of the un­fold­ing bat­tle there is dif­fi­cult. Airstrikes and ar­tillery bar­rages make it ex­treme­ly dan­ger­ous for jour­nal­ists to move around, and re­port­ing is re­strict­ed by Ukraine and the Moscow-backed sep­a­ratists it has been fight­ing in the Don­bas for eight years. 

The bat­tle­front in the east and south of Ukraine ex­tends over hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters (miles), stretch­ing men, ma­chines and re­sources. The two sides have been fight­ing vil­lage-by-vil­lage in parts. Ukrain­ian forces have ground down the Rus­sians, but are tak­ing loss­es, too. 

In the Luhan­sk re­gion of the Don­bas, strikes overnight hit a hos­pi­tal in Severodonet­sk, killing two and wound­ing nine, in­clud­ing a child, the re­gion­al mil­i­tary com­mand said Mon­day. Overnight strikes al­so hit oth­er towns. Re­gion­al mil­i­tary gov­er­nor Ser­hiy Haidai said Ukrain­ian spe­cial forces blew up Russ­ian-held rail­way bridges be­tween as part of ef­forts to slow the Russ­ian of­fen­sive. The in­for­ma­tion could not im­me­di­ate­ly be in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied. 

Mean­while, in the south, a strike Mon­day wound­ed three peo­ple in the Ode­sa re­gion. Air raid sirens ring out rou­tine­ly in the re­gion and its icon­ic Black Sea port city, al­so called Ode­sa. Vis­i­tors who would nor­mal­ly fill the city as the tourist sea­son kicks off this time of year are ab­sent, and the streets of the usu­al­ly live­ly city are qui­et. 

“This bat­tle is drag­ging on. Rus­sia does not stop at­tack­ing and ad­vanc­ing,” Ukrain­ian mil­i­tary an­a­lyst Oleh Zh­danov said in re­cent days. “The fate of the con­fronta­tion de­pends on the speed of sup­ply of West­ern weapons. ” 

In a sym­bol­ic boost, a Ukrain­ian pa­trol in the Kharkiv re­gion reached the Russ­ian bor­der and made a vic­to­ri­ous video there ad­dressed to Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Ze­len­skyy. The video post­ed Sun­day on Face­book by Ukraine’s Min­istry of De­fense shows a dozen fight­ers around a wood­en post — paint­ed blue and yel­low, Ukraine’s col­ors — that they car­ried with them and then stood up­right as a bor­der mark­er, in tri­umph. It was not clear ex­act­ly where the video was shot. 

One sol­dier said the unit went “to the di­vid­ing line with the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, the oc­cu­py­ing coun­try. Mr. Pres­i­dent, we have reached it. We are here.” Oth­er fight­ers made vic­to­ry signs and raised their fists. 

Along an­oth­er sec­tion of the fron­tier with Rus­sia, Ukrain­ian bor­der guards said they de­feat­ed a Russ­ian at­tempt Mon­day morn­ing to send troops in­to the north­ern Sumy re­gion. The bor­der guard ser­vice said Russ­ian forces de­ployed mor­tars, grenade launch­ers and ma­chine guns in an at­tempt to cov­er a “sab­o­tage and re­con­nais­sance group” cross­ing the bor­der from Rus­sia. 

The bor­der guard ser­vice said its of­fi­cers re­turned fire and forced the Russ­ian group to re­treat back in­to Rus­sia. The area is large­ly rur­al and hasn’t seen in­tense fight­ing in more than a month. There was no im­me­di­ate word from Rus­sia. 

Rus­sia troops have al­so con­tin­ued air and ar­tillery strikes around the Azovstal steel plant in Mar­i­upol, the last hold­out of sev­er­al hun­dred Ukrain­ian forces in the strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant city, the Ukrain­ian Gen­er­al Staff said. 

Britain’s De­fense Min­istry said Mon­day that Be­larus was de­ploy­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions forces along its bor­der with Ukraine and air de­fense, ar­tillery and mis­sile units to train­ing ranges in the west of the coun­try. Be­larus’ forces have not been di­rect­ly in­volved in the con­flict, though its ter­ri­to­ry was used as a stag­ing ground for the in­va­sion. 

But the pres­ence of Be­laru­sian troops near the bor­der may keep Ukrain­ian troops pinned down there, pre­vent­ing them from mov­ing to sup­port the coun­terof­fen­sive in the Don­bas. 

De­spite the fight­ing in the wider Kharkiv re­gion and the threat of Russ­ian mis­sile at­tacks, many peo­ple were re­turn­ing home to Kharkiv and oth­er cities around Ukraine, An­na Mal­yar, deputy head of the Min­istry of De­fense, said. 

Refugees were re­turn­ing not just be­cause of op­ti­mism that the war might ebb. 

“Liv­ing some­where just like that, not work­ing, pay­ing for hous­ing, eat­ing ... they are forced to re­turn for fi­nan­cial rea­sons,” Mal­yar said in re­marks car­ried by the RBK-Ukraine news agency. 

Mc­Quil­lan re­port­ed from Lviv, Ukraine. Yuras Kar­manau in Lviv, Mstyslav Cher­nov and An­drea Rosa in Kharkiv, Ele­na Be­ca­toros in Ode­sa and oth­er AP staffers around the world con­tributed to this re­port.