Kallas Says Russia Is Pretending to Negotiate Ahead of Abu Dhabi Talks
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Russia has shown no goodwill ahead of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi. She also pushed back on a US-led European security plan and urged more pressure on Moscow, including through sanctions, after Republican midterm losses.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Paris on Monday, November 9, that Russia is pretending to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. She said she had seen little sign of Moscow's goodwill.
Kallas spoke on the sidelines of a G7 ministerial meeting. It came ahead of trilateral discussions on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi between Ukraine, Russia and the United States. Officials from France, Britain, Germany, NATO and the European Commission will also be in the Emirati capital.
"So far they have just been pretending that they negotiate because we haven't seen any goodwill from the Russian side," Kallas said in an interview.
She accused Moscow of targeting civilians. "They are bombing Kyiv, they are bombing civilians," she said. In her view, Russia has turned to civilian targets because Ukrainians are making advances on the battlefield, and it wants to cause suffering before the hard winter arrives.
Russia denies targeting civilians. It has, however, stepped up aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and other key targets in recent months, as its forces' advances in eastern Ukraine have stalled. Ukraine has answered with drone strikes on Russian energy installations, often deep inside Russian territory.
Kallas also said Moscow had signed numerous agreements underpinning European security and had failed to respect them.
Dispute over European security
Jared Kushner, one of the lead US negotiators, said last week that Washington was working on a "broader European security architecture". Some Europeans are worried by that. They have repeatedly said they would not accept anything they had not agreed to.
Kallas said such a structure already exists. "The problem is that we already have a European security architecture in place that Russia has agreed to," she said. She cited the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia and others pledged to respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and existing borders.
"All this talk has to be about how we make sure that Russia actually respects the obligations that it has taken," she added.
Moscow has long accused Europeans of ignoring Russia's security concerns, for example by pursuing NATO enlargement up to its borders.
Friction among Europeans
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned on November 5 that Europe risked becoming irrelevant in efforts to end the war. She said that would happen if member states kept pursuing separate diplomatic tracks instead of agreeing on a common representative and strategy.
Kallas said the European Union should lead future discussions on European security, in line with its treaties and institutional structures, rather than ad hoc formats. "It is clear that the big countries want to talk also to big countries," she said. "But when it comes to European security issues, then the European Union has very clear lines in place. We have the treaties."
The EU is negotiating a 22nd package of sanctions on Russia. Kallas said she hoped last week's midterm election losses for US President Donald Trump's Republicans would change Washington's approach to Ukraine.
"We are hoping that there will be pressure on Russia to end this war and pressure (with) the (US) sanctions," she said. "If we were to do this together with the Americans, it would really have an effect."
