The day after the Sumy massacrein Ukraine, The Foreign Affairs Council of Luxembourg are seen dark faces and they feel sharp words. The shock is palpable and the colleague of Kiev Andreii Sibiha – connected remotely – has been seen to deliver a rosary of condolences. Moving on to the facts is more complex, given the logic of unanimity. Sibiha, however, invited the 27 to visit Ukraine on May 9th – Feast of Europe, for the EU, but of the victory in the Second World War, in Russia – as a sign of solidarity. An offer that, apparently, immediately met many consents (we talk about finding himself in Lopoli).
The goal, however, is now to “increase the pressure” on the Tsar to really push him to look for peace by approving a new round of sanctions – it would be the 17th – within early May, when the ministers will meet again in Warsaw. That is, a sprint for EU standards. Paris also linked the two ends of the Atlanticthey ask that both the EU and the USA now approves “heavy penalties to asphyxiating the Russian economy”. The Hungarian Péter Szijjártó immediately put himself sideways on social media, promising the veto on the “new fanatic initiatives in favor of the war”, which according to him include “other billion for Ukrainian, more weapons, deployment of military councilors, sanctions on nuclear energy and driven to open all the chapters of adhesion this year”. In private, however, it was much less combative. “He did not say any of this and even the Slovaks, often silent, declared themselves available to sanctions,” he confides a diplomatic source. The bite is now in the hands of the commission but, precisely, the restrictive measures should affect the flows of liquefied natural gas in Europe and, perhaps, the nuclear giant of Moscow Rosatom. Which for Hungary is sensitive deal, given that it has the contract for the Packs plant that has several reactors. According to various ministers, Sumy’s attack was “intentional” – and not “an error”, as feared by Donald Trump – and it is the demonstration that Moscow does not want peace at all.
“I hope that the US administration and the president will see how Vladimir Putin is taking a hoax of their good intentions and properly react,” the Polish Rados Sikorski thundered. In short, how much will depend on what the United States will be able to do, or not to do, Europe will take. The high EU representative Kaja Kallas has elegantly glissed a request for comment on Trump’s statements. “I think it is in the interest of everyone that Russia realizes that it has made a mistake but has made a mistake by attacking Ukraine,” he said. “It is also clear to everyone now that if you want the killings to end, pressure should be made on Russia, which is actually responsible for killing.”
And this is a clear reference to the Tycoon strategy. May 9 is a given symbol for Putin, who has always used it for political purposes. The rumor circulates that the Slovak Premier Robert Fico and the Serbian President Aleksander Vucic are among the guests of this year. “We expect no country nominated at the entrance to the EU to go to Moscow for the parade of 9 May,” Kallas has not surprised, who in Luxembourg saw the ministers of the Western Balkans. “The celebrations in Moscow will not be taken lightly on the European part, considering that Russia is conducting a large -scale war in Europe”.