“With Putin my patience is running quickly.” After the first reactions marked by ambiguity, Donald Trump seems to return to align with the positions of the allies on the incursion of Russian drones in Poland. Moreover, the massive violation of NATO aerial space has come in a context of total stall on the peace talks, as well as in the wake of the increment of Russian attacks on Ukraine. In short, it is not the time to loosen the support for Kiev and, to demonstrate it plastically, several exponents of the EU governments went to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian capital also arrived the councilors for national security (NSA) of the E4 (Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom), who gathered with their homologous of Kiev and with the US special correspondent for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.
The European reaction to what happened in Poland is unfolding in two great strands. The first, purely military, is in NATO’s alveo and refers to the East Sentinel operation announced by Mark Rutte. The second is diplomatic and could have shorter times than those that usually mark the community initiatives.
The high representative for foreign policy Kaja Kallas has announced, for the next few days, the development of the nineteenth pack of sanctions. “We will hit Russian oil, the ghost oil tankers and the banks,” Kallas anticipated who, on Thursday evening, spoke of measures to reduce Moscow revenue from crude and gas with the US secretary to energy Chris Wright. In this sense it could be decisive, for the EU, to obtain the aegis of the coordination at the G7 level. This will work in the next few days, before the package, Wednesday, end up on the table of permanent representatives.
The military provocations of Vladimir Putin are recompacting EU and USA. Trump admitted that between the Zar and Zelensky “there is a terrible hatred”. The direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia “I’m on pause” has somehow echoed the Kremlin.
In this context, the power of veto in the EU of Viktor Orban and Robert Fico seems to have reduced. In the morning the semi -annual renewal of individual sanctions for the Russians passed. A single name was removed from the list but, they explained European sources, “it was not a political removal”. In the same hours Brussels convened, in separated meeting, the Russian and Belarusian envoys, followed by Germany and France, who equally summoned the respective diplomatic representatives of Moscow.
“The drones in Poland were intentional,” underlined a spokesman for the EU Commission, expressing a very clear concept also to the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. On the dossier, the UN Security Council will also be expressed.
Faced with the new escalation, the EU leaders want a more homogeneous action and in line with Kiev’s requests. In the Ukrainian capital, to take a point on the situation, the Finnish president Alexander Stub, the Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski and his British homologous Yvette Cooper arrived.
In the same hours, the National Security Councilors of the E4 format – including the Italian Fabrizio Eggio – took stock of the representatives of Kiev and Washington on the security guarantees for Ukraine, with particular reference to those of a political nature. Among these, the security councilors are also working on solutions inspired by art. 5 of NATO, as proposed for some time by Italy.