EU Pushes for Strict Limits on Russian Military
Although the EU has stayed outside the U.S.-led Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations and avoided direct diplomatic talks with Moscow, Kallas told reporters she is preparing a list of demands she believes could influence the conflict’s trajectory.
“Everybody around the table, including the Russians and the Americans, needs to understand that you need Europeans to agree,” she said, as quoted by news agencies. “And for that, we also have conditions. And we should put the conditions not on Ukrainians… but on the Russians.”
“The Ukrainian army is not the issue. It’s the Russian army. It’s the Russian military expenditure. If they spend so much on the military they will have to use it again,” Kallas added. Her office plans to circulate the list to EU member states in the coming days.
Moscow has repeatedly argued that the conflict began with the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and NATO’s growing involvement with Ukraine’s military, as the new government pursued membership in the U.S.-led bloc. In early 2022, the two sides briefly negotiated a draft peace agreement envisioning a neutral Ukraine with a limited armed force, but Ukraine withdrew from the deal under pressure from Western partners seeking a military victory.
The EU is viewed by Russia as a major barrier to a workable settlement, with Moscow contending that continued European aid encourages Kyiv to make demands it considers unacceptable. Some Western European nations have proposed sending troops to Ukraine as a “security guarantee,” a plan Moscow has firmly rejected.
EU officials acknowledge that their support for Ukraine is heavily dependent on U.S. backing. Calls have emerged for renewed diplomatic engagement with Russia to shape the outcome. French President Emmanuel Macron recently warned that the U.S. could dictate terms to the EU, including the timing of Ukraine’s potential membership in the bloc.
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