The heads of state and government of the European Union warn Russia of the “massive consequences and high costs” of further military aggression against Ukraine. That emerges from a draft of the final declaration of the EU summit on Thursday. The deliberations on possible sanctions continued in the evening; However, the EU only wants to take decisions on this if there is an invasion. At the beginning of the meeting, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) emphasized that “the inviolability of borders is one of the most important foundations of peace in Europe” and that the EU states would do everything to ensure that this principle is preserved.
The EU thus reaffirmed the stance previously agreed upon by the USA and the other NATO countries as well as the G-7 foreign ministers. If the threatened drastic economic sanctions were actually imposed, the EU would have the essential role to play. Some member states have called for punitive measures to be imposed on Russia immediately, rather than in response to a possible further military intervention by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda warned that the situation was “the most dangerous in 30 years”. Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš spoke of a “series of attacks that are all interlinked”. He mentioned the behavior of the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who had migrants brought to the borders of EU countries, as well as artificially high prices for Russian gas and disinformation campaigns in Moscow.
Moscow is also challenging the European Union and the West in the Western Balkans. The United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, said the Süddeutsche Zeitung With a view to efforts of the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to completely split off the Serbian part of the country Republika Srpska, he had “possibly support in Moscow”.
In Brussels, Scholz was once again confronted with demands to stop the controversial Russian Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. A decision on the commissioning of the tube will not be made before July anyway, as the President of the responsible Federal Network Agency, Jochen Homann, said on Thursday. The energy certification according to EU law is still missing.
Meanwhile, Russia has called for negotiations with the US and its NATO allies on security guarantees. According to the Kremlin, these must include, among other things, that Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov handed over drafts of a corresponding contract to US diplomat Karen Donfried in Moscow on Wednesday. Putin’s foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, also phoned Jake Sullivan, US President Joe Biden’s security advisor. Ryabkov is ready to start negotiations with the US in a neutral country immediately, and there could be another video conference between Biden and Putin before the end of the year.
In contrast, the EU heads of state and government affirm that negotiations on the situation in Ukraine must be conducted in the so-called Normandy format, in which France and Germany mediate between the governments in Kiev and Moscow. So far, the Kremlin has not been ready for such a meeting. Before the EU summit, Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron had conferred with the Ukrainian head of state Volodimir Zelensky in Brussels.
The format is currently burdened by upset between Russia and Germany after the guilty verdict of the Berlin Chamber Court in the so-called Tiergarten murder. It had accused Russia of “state terrorism”. A Russian national was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Georgian of Chechen origin. According to the court, he was acting on behalf of government agencies in Russia. After the Foreign Office expelled two members of the Russian embassy in Berlin from the country in response to the verdict, Russia announced retaliatory measures.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow criticized the judgment as a “politically agreed matter” and insisted that the accused was innocent. Kremlin spokesman Peskov said Russia “strongly disagrees” with the conclusions and wording of the judgment. The discussion about this should “in no way influence the prospects for building a dialogue between President Putin and the new Chancellor”. In Brussels, Scholz defended Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s (Greens) decision to expel two Russian diplomats.