Russia has switched to counter-entry
The visit to Kyiv of the leaders of France, Italy and Germany, gave an answer to the question whether the EU is a matter for Ukraine, and at the same time for Moldova, the status of the country – candidates for joining the EU. The German Chancellor, the President of France and the Romanian Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister supported a positive solution to this issue. It should have been completed by the end of the month. Candidacy, however, is not equal to members, which no one promises. Meanwhile, Russia does not hide its determination to nullify the European integration successes of the two countries.
Checkered but don’t go
Until the end of June, the issue of resolving the situation in Moldova and Georgia in the status of a candidate for EU accession is finally resolved. Three countries, united last year in the so-called European integration trio, quickly applied for candidacy, received questionnaires on this topic from the EU, filled them out and returned them to Brussels. Kyiv, Chisinau and Tbilisi have declared: they deserve to apply the approach of the next step towards rapprochement with them.
“In fact, today we are already quite close to obtaining this status, as it was impossible to dream even a few years ago. Ukraine has done everything it could to get a candidacy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is sure. According to his Moldovan colleague Maia Sandu, the republic, that “the EU member states under the intention holder” of the three states, which will give them a chance “to remain part of the free world.” The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, recently stated: “We demand the status deserved as a result of the thirty-year war of the Georgian people on the way to destination.”
But Georgia is probably now taken out of the brackets. But for Ukraine and Moldova, the decisive moment has come: on June 17, the European Commission will make a recommendation on this matter, and on June 23-24 the European Council will have its say. As Kommersant, who works on the European protocol in one of the three countries, explained, candidates for candidates will be found for each of them.
“Then they all get on the agenda of the European Council and are considered in the same composition. In each country, in theory, the text of the conclusions should be agreed upon. Will be considered together, but solutions can be evaluated. They will start from the opinion of the European Commission,” the interlocutor said. Another Kommersant source added: “If the European Commission is yes, then most likely a solution will be proposed.”
A complete clear signal that Ukraine and Moldova received a status a week later, what they are looking at, was received on June 16, when the leaders of four EU countries arrived in Kyiv on a visit – Chancellor Olaf of Germany, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, as well as the presidents of France and the governments of Emmanuel Macron and Klaus Iohannis. Mr. Macron arrived in Kyiv from Chisinau, where he met with Maia Sandu, promising Moldova speed, including on the issue of European integration.
Four test leaders Irpen, strongly condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Olaf Scholz on Twitter: “As Bucha wrote, Irpin has long been a symbol of the unimaginable cruelty of the Russian Federation, a spy crime.” Mario Draghi promised the whole restoration: “We will rebuild everything.”
Three of the four leaders who visited Ukraine together have questions in Kyiv. Mr. Macron said that Russia does not need to be “humiliated” in order to find a way out of the investigation of the investigation of the investigation. Olaf Scholz is criticized for too slow (according to Kyiv) and not in those volumes of military assistance. And Mario Draghi got, in particular, both from Kyiv and from Moscow, for the Italian plan, retold by the press, close to Ukraine, involving the non-alignment of countries to NATO and the security of the autonomy of Crimea and Donbass when they return under Ukrainian control.
However, all these topics were not discussed during the visit. But the leaders of Saudi Arabia thundered in the EU. According to the statement of Chancellor Scholz, which is carried out by Reuters, “Germany is for a positive decision” regarding the two countries. President Macron thinks so.
The status of a candidate (if two countries that have been on the path of European integration for more than a decade actually receives it) should be extended by their participation from Brussels. After Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia joined the accession of the association on association and association in the area of concentrated and external free trade, also received the right to visa-free travel to the EU, their relations with the communities were affected for years mainly by issues of financial support for the states indicated by Brussels . on the need for reform in various situations and security on the fight against corruption. Against this background, the candidate looks like a positive assessment. But on the other hand, it is not clear how much this brings Kyiv closer and reaches the coveted membership.
Nobody has banned a clear time frame. In this official statement that the path from candidate to full membership may take at least a decade. This is a rather long time period, given how quickly the reality in the state owned by the government of the country changed at the beginning of the year and continues to change every day, in fact, now the three of them remain in the Eastern Partnership (in total, the project included six states – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine), created in 2008 to collect their European integration.
Tank-throwing moods
The Ukrainian authorities openly admit that the situation at the front is extremely difficult for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Vladimir Zelensky called the loss of the Armed Forces of Ukraine painful. Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov estimated daily casualties at 100 killed and about 500 wounded. David Arakhamia, head of the faction of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party in the Verkhovna Rada and the head of the Ukrainian delegation, did not participate in negotiations with Russia for quite a long time, during a recent trip to the United States said that Ukraine daily collects fighters killed and wounded.
This is yet another confirmation that Russia’s pressure is not weakening. At the same time, since February 24, the initial separate state structures have a goal in the form of “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee for CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatukhtulin on June 14 during the years of the Assembly proclaimed: “In 1990, Saparmurat Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan canceled the ballet and explained this. He said: “There is no ballet in the blood of Turkmens.” I believe that we consider it acceptable that the blood of Ukrainians does not have to have the sea… It is necessary that Ukraine return to the eternal state of a land country.” The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, made a proposal on Twitter, after the publication of which his account was blocked by the social network: “In general, what has grown in the place of Ukraine is an existential threat to the Russian people, Russian history, Russian language and Russian civilization. If we do not put an end to them, as, unfortunately, our grandfathers did not do away with them, our grandchildren will perish, but will end at an even greater cost. So let’s get this over with. Once and forever. For our grandchildren.”
It can be added that the statements of deputies and officials who do not have a special relationship with the adoption of foreign policy and military decisions are not taken seriously. But Russian diplomats are also speaking tough. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on June 14 that Moscow would put an end to the “special military operation.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is participating in the St. Petersburg Foreign Economic Forum, focused on Moldova, which borders Ukraine, in a way that he had not spoken about since the beginning of the “special economic operation”. In an interview with the NTV channel on June 16, he said that the West was “obviously trying to make a second Ukraine” out of Moldova. At the same time, he accused Chisinau of a consumerist approach. “The Russians should give us another discount on gas, defer payments.” That is, such begging by and large, extortion. “Now, if you don’t do it to us, then we will quickly go to Europe. And if you do, then we will go anyway, but more slowly.” This is how I perceive sensitivity,” commented the Russian Minister of Relations with the Moldovan side, as well as recent statements by Chisinau about the importance of increasing the corporatism of membership in the CIS.
“The EU is working very rudely, forcing you to not even pay attention yet (in the appendix.— “b”) near the second front. We will observe very much. But the approach of the EU to Moldova, and not only the EU, but also the Americans, says only one thing – that the country also plans to imprison it in an anti-Russian vein,” Mr. Lavrov noted, arguing that Transnistria and Gagauzia, the pro-Russian regions of Moldova, definitely do not count. be in the wake of such a policy. Sergei Lavrov has not commented on such frequent cases in Moldova for a long time, with the mention of cases inside the country of pain points that were in remote heat points. In the case of the situation in Ukraine, this is not a harmless signal for Chisinau.
Moscow’s attitude to European integration pressures and the prospects of the post-Soviet republics in an interview with Kommersant was commented by Russia’s permanent representative in the application, Vladimir Chizhov. “When they announce (decision.— “b”), then we will formulate our point of view,” the diplomat said. According to him, the opinion of the European Commission on this issue is “more or less appreciated, and it is positive”, but there have been “internal riots” in this area before, and therefore it is not worth anticipating it with absolute certainty.
At the same time, Vladimir Chizhov confirmed in a conversation with Kommersant that in recent months Russia’s attitude to the use has undergone significant changes: “For quite a long time we perceive volumes to expand consumption as something more or less natural. I even called it “the regional dimension of globalization.” But the use has changed, degraded, it is no longer a political and economic association with a claim to an independent role and strategic autonomy. Now it is, in fact, an auxiliary military bloc. Auxiliary next door to NATO. According to Mr. Chizhov, it follows that the EU is no less a threat to Russia than NATO, and, accordingly, the desire to get involved is also a hostile action.