The head of the EU foreign policy department, Josep Borrell, considers Russia's attempts to prevent the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland to be the best evidence of the real importance of this forum for establishing a just peace in Ukraine.
Russia is exerting intense pressure to hold the Peace Summit — Borrell
The high representative of the EU assessed Russia's actions to prevent the Peace Summit in Switzerland, where more than 80 countries will discuss the Ukrainian "peace formula".
He stated this in Brussels before the meeting of defence ministers of the European Union countries.
Now, in the negotiations (regarding the Peace Summit in Switzerland — ed.), there is a lot of pressure on everyone to make this June forum successful.
Josep Borrell
Head of the EU Foreign Policy Department
He emphasised that Russia is doing the same, but to disrupt the summit. Russia is putting pressure on the countries, in particular BRICS, not to participate in the Swiss peace conference and proposing to hold a similar meeting in Moscow.
If they [the Russians] do not want countries to join the peace summit in Switzerland so much, then this forum is really very important.
EU countries are discussing allowing Ukraine to strike military targets on Russia's territory
Borrell said that such a step is acceptable from the point of view of international law since Moscow's attacks on Ukraine are coming from Russian territory.
On May 28, EU defence ministers are discussing whether to allow Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with weapons sent by member states.
I'm sure some will bring up the risk of escalation, but you have to balance the risk of escalation with the need to protect Ukraine.
In addition, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that Ukraine's use of Western weapons against targets in Russia would not make NATO part of the conflict.
Lifting restrictions is a national decision, not a NATO-wide decision. Some allies did not impose such restrictions on weapons that they imposed on Ukraine, while others did. I believe that now is the time to review these restrictions, said the NATO Secretary General.
