The European Union’s top diplomat is visiting the frontline of Ukraine’s war with Moscow-backed separatists, amid intensifying diplomatic activity in response to Russia’s buildup of troops on the country’s border.
Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, began a two-day trip to Ukraine on Tuesday, before US-Russia talks in Geneva on 10 January and Nato-Russia talks on 12 January. Borrell is meeting Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, during a trip intended to show solidarity with Kyiv, which aspires to join Nato and the EU.
Tensions spiked after Vladimir Putin last month set out security demands that Nato immediately rejected, including a veto on Ukraine entering the military alliance and a ban on troops and weapons along its eastern flank. The EU and US have accused Russia of stoking a crisis by massing tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine.
In an attempt to defuse tensions, Russian and US officials are to hold talks on 10 January in Geneva, where the US president, Joe Biden, and Putin met last year. Two days later, western countries will meet Russia in the Nato-Russia Council. Talks will continue on 13 January through the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a body that includes the US, its Nato allies, Russia and former Soviet states.
The EU is anxious not to be sidelined. “We do not want to be, and must not be, spectators that are not involved and over whose heads decisions are made,” Borrell told Die Welt last week, adding this was also the view of the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, whom he had spoken to before Christmas.
Borrell, who has been pushing for more EU military cooperation, said Europe had to be involved in the talks. “European security is our security. It is about us. Two parties, the US and Russia, or Nato and Russia, simply cannot negotiate about this – even if Moscow imagines it that way. We are not in the postwar period. There are some European states that are not Nato allies. There must be no Yalta 2,” he said referring to the second world war meeting of allied powers that accepted Soviet domination of eastern Europe.
More than 14,000 people have been killed in Ukraine’s still-smouldering conflict with Russian-backed separatists since 2014.
Ukraine’s ambassador to London, Vadym Prystaiko, called on western countries to announce preemptive sanctions against Russia to deter an attack, in contrast to the preference for reactive action. He suggested measures “that can be really painful to Russia” such as switching off its access to the Swift international payments system.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “What Ukrainians are fearing the most” is that a “so-called big deal is baked somewhere behind our backs”. Western leaders, he said, should understand that Ukrainians have their own agenda. “The first item on this agenda is survival in the way we see it, to be close to western democracy.”
Tensions have also forced non-Nato member Finland to restate its right to choose its security policy. In a new year message, Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, said his country retained the right to join Nato, a point reiterated by the prime minister, Sanna Marin. “Finland retains the option of Nato membership,” she said. “We should uphold this freedom of choice.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said last month that if Finland and Sweden joined Nato “this would have serious military and political consequences, which would require an adequate response on Russia’s part”.
Nato foreign ministers will hold a special meeting on Friday to discuss Russia’s military buildup and broader security issues, officials announced.
