The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, urges EU members to continue sending military aid to Ukraine, especially the tanks demanded by Volodimir Zelenski, since he considers that not enough has been done to support that country and He has warned parliamentary groups that the shipment of weapons is not incompatible with diplomatic efforts to end the war. “We have announced that we will give battle tanks and there has not been any third world war,” said the high representative in a speech in the European Parliament, where reluctance to the position of the allies arises more frequently due to fear of an escalation .
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“I don’t understand those who say that, in order to negotiate, you must first stop supporting Ukraine militarily. On the contrary, you have to do both things at the same time. This is not a debate between doves and hawks”, asserted Borrell, who is confident that within the framework of the next UN Assembly, a kind of mediation or negotiation process led by the Secretary General will be launched. But he has shown little optimism in acknowledging that “the war is going to be long” and showing distrust in Vladimir Putin, who has said he does not have plans to end the attack, according to those who have approached diplomatically to address the situation.
Borrell, who has assured that he does not have any “warrior ardor”, has warned that this spring and summer are going to be decisive in the future of the conflict and has reprimanded the 27 for their slowness in making decisions such as sending tanks. Thus, he has urged the partners to continue sending weapons. For now, only eleven countries intend to send tanks, as announced on Tuesday by the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, who leads the group that is coordinating this action.
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“I make a call to the countries that have modern and efficient battle tanks, which are gathering dust in their barracks and which are useless, to give them to Ukraine as soon as possible”, Borrell said. What he hasn’t said anything about is sending fighters, which is Zelensky’s new request to the allies. And while the taboo on possibly sending fighter jets has been broken, the allies maintain that that phase has not yet been entered.
He has also ensured that the sanctions, albeit slowly, are working, especially the cap on the price of Russian oil. In the same sense, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has spoken, who has assured that the nine current packages are causing the Russian economy to go backwards. “And to maintain this strong pressure, we are going to propose a tenth package of measures with new prohibitions on trade and the export of technology from Russia,” said the head of the community government, who has estimated the total value of these new measures at 11,000 million. sanctions targeting the military industry. The intention of Brussels is to impose restrictions on the electronic components that Russia buys to make drones, missiles or helicopters.