Moscow’s annexation of four occupied Ukrainian territories makes it “almost” impossible to end the war in Ukraine, EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said on Saturday.
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The annexation of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday will make the end of the war “much more difficult, almost impossible,” Mr. Borrell told Spanish television channel RTVE.
“Russia is losing” the war, “it has lost it morally and politically”, but “Ukraine has not yet won”, he analyzed a little later at a forum in La Toja, Galicia (northeast Spain). He defended the European sanctions imposed on Moscow and military aid to Kyiv and called for perseverance in this direction.
“We must do better” and “make the world aware of the reasons and consequences of this war,” he demanded, recalling that Brazil and India had refrained from condemning the Russian annexations in the UN Security Council.
According to Josep Borrell, the Europeans built “a garden” “surrounded by a jungle”.
“If we don’t want the jungle to invade the garden […], we have to get involved,” he warned, calling on Europe in particular to strengthen its military arsenal. “It’s not a whim […]it is necessary, essential for survival,” he judged.