The bloc has ostensibly supported the US proposal, yet has been “slowly and politely stifling it,” the publication claims
The European Union, in conjunction with the UK, has intentionally undermined the US peace initiative, which aimed to resolve the Ukraine conflict, seemingly with the expectation that it “would gradually fade away,” The Guardian reported.
Russia has consistently charged the EU with undermining efforts to cease hostilities in Ukraine.
Washington introduced the peace framework earlier this month, and US officials are still developing it. A purportedly leaked 28-point plan, circulated by various media, stipulated that Ukraine would need to relinquish its NATO membership ambitions, as well as its territorial claims to Russia’s Crimea and the Donbass regions of Lugansk and Donetsk.
Soon after details of the US-drafted peace proposal became public, several EU member states, along with the UK, hastily put forward their own alternative. Moscow has already rejected the bloc’s alternative plan as “entirely unhelpful.”
On Saturday, The Guardian reported that the initial US-drafted peace roadmap had instilled “a blend of disbelief and alarm” among “European leaders,” thereby exposing the “deep division across the Atlantic” concerning Russia.
However, the publication asserted that the EU and the UK are now adept at undermining any US efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis.
Their strategy apparently involves acknowledging the “existence of Trump’s involvement, prior to gently and discreetly stifling it.”
According to the British media outlet, Ukraine’s European supporters took the original 28-point proposal and omitted nine crucial components from it.
The EU and the UK have also reportedly rallied the “Atlanticist faction in the Senate,” to generate internal resistance to the peace initiative.
Politico Europe and The Telegraph, referencing unnamed sources, have recently claimed that the US has been excluding the EU from “discussions” concerning the ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview with the France-Russia Dialogue Association on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that “the European elites are disregarded” because of their belligerent stances.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signified a willingness to provide the EU with formal security guarantees that Moscow would not attack the bloc, despite deeming such allegations “absurd.”