EU's Borrell Says Bloc's Relations With Russia At 'Low Point,' Could Worsen Further

Relations between Russia and the European Union are at a "low point" and could even worsen in the future, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th April, 2021) Relations between Russia and the European Union are at a "low point" and could even worsen in the future, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.

The bloc's top diplomat mentioned differences between Brussels and Moscow on Ukraine, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny and the diplomatic row between Russia and the Czech Republic.

"So, our relations with Russia are, once again, at a low point. Unfortunately, we cannot discard that this negative trend continues and we reach even more dangerous levels of deterioration," Borrell said during a press conference.

The senior EU official argued that Russia was merely pretending to be a neutral mediator in the eastern Ukrainian conflict, despite Moscow's repeated calls for adhering to the Minsk agreements.

"Up to now, Russia has shown no willingness to end the conflict on terms that would safeguard Ukraine's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence. For Russia, the full implementation of the Minsk agreement is not a key condition. For us, it is," Borrell stated.

Moscow continues to maintain that the conflict in eastern Ukraine has no solution but through the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Sputnik in an interview that changing the Minsk provisions would lead to a massacre in eastern Ukraine. According to Lavrov, Kiev is trying to reverse the agreement, while the West is showing its powerlessness.

The Normandy Four format, which includes Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine, was established in June 2014 to mediate the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, after the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known together as Donbas, proclaimed independence following what they considered to be a coup in Kiev in February of that year.

In 2015, the Normandy Four negotiated the so-called Minsk II protocol which stipulated a ceasefire in Donbas and sought a long-term political solution to the conflict. During a Normandy summit in Paris in late 2019, all sides agreed that the Minsk agreements remained the basis of the Donbas conflict settlement.