Josep Borrell, head of Community Diplomacy, demands the presence of Brussels in the contacts to recognize the validity of the agreements on Ukraine
A few hours after the presidents of the United States and Russia, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, spoke on the phone this Thursday, for the second time in less than a month, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, María Zajárova, called it “inadmissible.” that the head of European Diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned the day before that “any discussion on security in Europe must have his participation”, referring to Brussels. Borrell also described as “unacceptable” the “security guarantees” required by Russia as a condition for its harassment of Ukraine to cease.
“Their claims do not make sense and no one has the right to do so,” said Zajárova in response to Borrell. In his view, the European Union behaves “very strangely and in many cases unacceptable” in relation to Russia. The Russian diplomatic spokeswoman maintained that her country does not try to negotiate on European security outside the EU.
In an interview with the German newspaper ‘Die Welt’, the European High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security declared that Brussels “must not be an uninvolved bystander” in the talks between Russia and the United States and stressed that “the EU must be present in these negotiations. In his opinion, “Russia wants to negotiate the European security architecture without involving the EU, which is absurd. We will not accept that. Nothing is decided if we are not there. Borrell also emphasized the fact that, according to his point of view, the Kremlin’s demands “are purely an internal Russian agenda with completely unacceptable conditions, especially regarding Ukraine.”
The telephone summit on Thursday between Biden and Putin, organized at the express request of the latter, in the eyes of many observers, was presented as a very complicated dialogue in the face of the merciless “blackmail” of Russia. The previous time, on December 7, also at the request of Moscow, both leaders spoke by videoconference. Biden then warned Putin that if the troops he has concentrated for weeks in the Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don and Crimea regions cross the border and attack Ukraine, Russia will face “unprecedented sanctions”, a probable banking blockade and the end of its gas and oil exports.
Rebel provinces
But the Russian president did not give in, insisting that his intention is not to invade Ukraine but to prevent Kiev from trying to regain the rebel provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk (Donbass) by force. Putin also urged his interlocutor to pressure the Ukrainian authorities to comply with the Minsk peace accords of February 2015. Moscow, according to the head of the Kremlin at his press conference on the 23rd, wants Kiev to take action. talk to the separatists and modify the Constitution to enable an autonomous regime for Donbass.
Biden’s demand that Russia withdraw its forces from the border and return them to their barracks has also been chanted by his allies, by the European Union as a whole, by countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and, above all, by NATO. They have done so by brandishing the threat of more sanctions, but avoiding mentioning possible retaliation of a military nature, except for some promise to send war material to Ukraine so that its Army can defend itself against a possible Russian attack.
All these threats, however, failed to intimidate Moscow. On the contrary, the Russian leaders focused on the danger of a great world conflagration if the West continues to press. He did so on December 9, two days after the telematic meeting of the two presidents, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Riabkov, who compared the current crisis with that of the missiles in Cuba in 1962.
Then, on December 17, Riabkov was in charge of presenting to the press the two base documents on the “security guarantees” that Russia demands from the West in order to stop its military harassment of Kiev and move towards normalization. The main issue for Moscow is that Ukraine should never join NATO, since, as Putin explained in his appearance before the press a week ago, this would mean the deployment of threatening weapons on its territory in the immediate vicinity of Russia. But Putin also wants fewer allied forces in countries like Poland, the Baltic republics, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria or Romania, in addition to eradicating the emplacement of medium-range missiles and nuclear weapons in Europe.
On December 21, in a speech to the Russian generalate, Putin spoke for the first time of a “military” response in the event that the allies refuse to grant Moscow the guarantees it demands or try to address the matter without due ” seriousness”. On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomín said “NATO is preparing for a large-scale, high-intensity armed conflict with Russia.”
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