KYIV, Feb 2 - Senior members of the European Union’s executive branch traveled to Ukraine on Thursday looking to boost relations with the war-torn country and pave the way for it to one day join the bloc, but concerns over corruption and democratic deficiencies remain.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen led a team of 15 policy commissioners who were to spend the day discussing Ukraine’s financial, business and energy needs, and how to bring the former Soviet state’s legislation into line with EU standards, The Associated Press reported.

The highly symbolic visit is the first EU political mission of its kind to a country at war. Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel, who chairs meetings of the bloc’s heads of state and government, will hold a summit in Kyiv on Friday with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Von der Leyen, at a meeting with Zelensky on Thursday, praised wartime Ukraine’s “brilliant application” for European Union membership, though Brussels officials note that Ukraine joining the 27-nation bloc is still a long way off.

Ahead of possible membership, Von der Leyen said, the Commission is proposing that Kyiv “join key European programs — this will give Ukraine benefits close to those of EU membership in many areas.”

EU assistance for Ukraine, she said, has reached 50 billion euros ($55 billion) since the start of Russia’s war.

She said the EU plans to adopt a 10th package of sanctions again Russia before Feb. 24. Von der Leyen also announced that the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression in Ukraine would be set up in The Hague to coordinate the collection of evidence of war crimes.

On Wednesday, Zelensky’s government continued its recent crackdown on alleged corruption with the dismissal of more high-ranking officials. But an EU advisory mission set up in Kyiv in 2014 said then that it would take at least a decade to make a dent in the problem.

In a new report this week, the anti-corruption group Transparency International praised Ukraine for the steady progress it has made in battling the scourge in recent years, although it ranks the country a low 116 out of the 180 countries listed for perceived corruption.

“However, Russia’s war of aggression has disrupted some of the reform processes and exacerbated corruption risks. Reconstruction and recovery efforts can be drastically undermined by wrongdoers pocketing funds, both during the war and after,” the report said. (ap/ez)