“The war continues, and the news from the battlefield is favorable for Ukraine. Ukraine is back on the offensive [mas] The war has entered a new phase, a phase that is undoubtedly dangerous because we are facing a frightening scenario that we must not turn a blind eye to,” said the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Speaking in a debate at the plenary session of the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg, Josep Borrell spoke of “a scenario of conventional war involving a nuclear power, a nuclear power that is now retreating from the usual scenario and that threatens to use nuclear weapons.”
“This is certainly a worrying scenario in which we must show that our support for Ukraine is unwavering,” he stressed.
Despite emphasizing that “Ukraine is advancing on three fronts, in the Donbass, […]in the southern center of Zaporizhia, advancing on Mariupol, and finally on Kherson,” the head of public diplomacy pointed out that Russia “still has a superiority in numbers, superiority in firepower,” so caution is needed.
Earlier today, EU member states reached a political agreement on new sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine, the eighth package, due to come into effect on Thursday as a “strong response” to the annexation of Ukrainian territories.
Proposed by the European Commission last Wednesday, amid Russia’s “new escalation” with “fraudulent referendums”, partial mobilizations and the threat of nuclear weapons, a new package of EU sanctions includes a ceiling on Russian oil prices, new trade restrictions, depriving Russia of about 7 billion euros revenues, a ban on the export of more products to deprive the Kremlin of key technologies for the Russian military machine, and an update to the list of individuals and entities subject to restrictive measures. .
In particular, the EU added to the list of individual sanctions pro-Russian officials in the Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine.
In recent days, there have even been Russian attacks on the area of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the largest in Europe, after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization of 300,000 Russian reservists.
“The position of the Russian army is very bad. Including because the Russian soldiers do not know what the war is for, and those 300,000 who will be taken from their native places to the front will understand even less, so the war can be won on the battlefield, but it must be won. in the realm of ideas. In addition to the war itself, there is another war – the war for the supremacy of values, ”said Josep Borrell.
And at a time when there are fears of interruptions in Russian gas supplies to the EU, the head of EU diplomacy stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “waits for cold weather, interruptions in gas supplies, high prices and low temperatures in order to undermine the European will and will continue to support Ukraine”.
“Here we need to ask the Europeans to understand what is at stake, because our support for Ukraine is not just a matter of generosity, our support for Ukraine must be unwavering, because the security of Ukraine is inextricably linked to our own security,” he added.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th.
