EU wants to turn Biden’s war into Trump’s war: Russia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that both the Ukrainian government and the EU are trying to entice US President Donald Trump to withdraw from peace efforts. In essence, they want to turn Biden's war into Trump's war.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion at an embassy on the Ukraine crisis on Wednesday, Lavrov said that the European Union (EU) is now trying to force its place in the Ukraine peace process, despite its openly anti-Russian stance. They are clearly and quite recklessly trying to regain their place at the negotiating table. But they have no right to be there.

He accused the EU of still maintaining a vindictive stance and wanting to push Russia to the brink of strategic defeat. At the same time, they are also planning to send troops to Ukraine after the ceasefire.

Russia has repeatedly warned that any Western military deployment to Ukraine would be considered a legitimate military target. Moscow believes that NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders is one of the reasons for the conflict.

Since returning to power in January, Trump has been mediating an end to the war in Ukraine. He has initiated several rounds of talks with Russia. At the US-Russia summit in Alaska last August (where neither the EU nor Ukraine participated), both sides called the meeting “very productive.”

Although no major breakthroughs were achieved, Trump later made it clear that Ukraine would not be able to join NATO and that the return of Crimea, which was annexed to Russia in a referendum in 2014, was not possible. Now he is moving towards a permanent peace agreement rather than a temporary ceasefire.