Negotiations on Ukraine and Moldova joining the European Union will begin on Tuesday, June 25, the Belgian government announced on Friday. Belgium, which is acting on behalf of EU member states until the end of this month, said on X that ministers had approved the negotiating plans for talks with the two countries, allowing the negotiations to begin next week. Ukraine and Moldova applied for EU membership after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the former in February 2022. Moldova, like its larger neighbour Ukraine, has a breakaway region called Transnistria that aligns itself to Russia. But the…