peril. announcer: live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with michael holmes. and we begin in ukraine which has just cleared the first hurdle on the path to join the european union. eu and ukrainian flags flew side by side in kyiv on friday after the european commission recommended that ukraine should be given candidate status. the move doesn t guarantee membership, which could be years away, but president zelenskyy says it still brings ukraine a step closer to winning the war. the commission s leader says ukraine deserves to be in. we all know that ukrainians are ready to die for the european perspective. we want them to live with us, the european dream. now, the british prime minister boris johnson made a surprise visit to kyiv on friday, his second since the war began. he offered ukraine a major military training program that he said would, quote, fundamentally change the equation of the war. new videos meanwhile appear to show two u.s. military volunteers wh