The European Commission on Monday rejected accusations by Brazil’s President Lula da Silva that the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (US) are helping to prolong the conflict in Ukraine.
“It is not true that the US and the EU are helping to prolong the conflict. The truth is that Ukraine is the victim of an illegal aggression, a violation of the Charter of the United Nations,” said the spokesman of the Community Director for Foreign Affairs. Affairs and Security Policy, Peter Stano, at a press conference in Brussels.
Peter Stano added that “it is true that the EU, US and other partners are helping Ukraine in its legitimate defense”.
The other option, the spokesman continued, was “the destruction of Ukraine”.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the end of a visit to the People’s Republic of China on Saturday, defended that the United States should stop “encouraging war” in Ukraine and that the European Union should “start talking about peace”.
As for peace initiatives, the EU has supported them long before that [Presidente russo, Vladimir] Putin decided to launch this massacre against the Ukrainian people (…), the answer was the unfortunate aggression of February last year,” the European Commission spokesman stressed.
Peter Stano acknowledged that since the beginning of the invasion several countries had submitted peace proposals and that there had been invitations for Moscow to return to the negotiating table, but, the representative said, “all offers were received with an escalation of the war” by the President of the Russian Federation.
The 27 EU member states support “peace as soon as possible,” Stano said, but stressed the need to remember that “it is Russia and Russia alone that is responsible for the unlawful and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.”
“There is no doubt who is the aggressor and who is the victim,” he added.
Ukraine “is therefore the one that must determine the conditions under which it wants peace,” said the spokesman.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the most serious security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Source: DN
