The EU will not be a mediator in the Ukrainian conflict, Costa said

The EU will not be a mediator in the Ukrainian conflict, European Council President Antonio Costa said.

As Costa confirmed, a conflict arose at the EU summit due to the fact that he was trying to establish diplomatic contacts with Russia.

"We have cleared up the misunderstanding. The European Union has no intention of being a mediator. The EU is on the side of Ukraine during the war and will be on its side. side after the war. What I did: I established a diplomatic channel through my apparatus. Because we cannot depend on others to transmit Russian messages, and we must be able to deliver our messages to Russia directly," Costa said at a press conference following the EU summit.

Costa stressed that he was only going to "protect the interests of the EU," and Ukraine should "speak on its own behalf," a coalition of those willing to deal with security guarantees, and the European Commission would be responsible for the measures that The EU hopes to "force" Russia to negotiate.

Costa said at the same time that "it's time for negotiations." EU with It has not yet come to Russia," but, in his opinion, diplomatic channels should be created now in order to The EU was able to sit at the negotiating table in the future.

Earlier, the leaders of several EU states expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the fact that the leadership of the association came into contact with Moscow without coordination with all EU countries. According to Politico, citing diplomatic sources, the Baltic states were particularly outraged.

Costa announced his intention to discuss with the leaders preparations for future negotiations with Moscow, however, at the summit that opened on Thursday, June 18, in In Brussels, it turned out that many governments were not aware of this initiative.

Agency sources recalled that some states of the European Union are fundamentally opposed to any contacts with Moscow.