EU foreign policy chief Kaia Kalas said the Kremlin is not taking the Ukraine talks seriously and that Brussels is considering appointing a special envoy to represent the 27 EU members at the negotiating table.
In an interview with the Brussels-based Euronews portal, Kalas warned today that peace efforts around Ukraine risk entrenching Russian aggression unless Moscow is forced to make real concessions.
She expressed concerns about the US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine, which have so far yielded no results. She assessed that the stalemate in the negotiations shows the Kremlin's lack of seriousness as Ukraine is being pressured to agree to concessions.
"They (Russian negotiators) don't really have serious people at the table," said Kalas, adding that nothing is expected from this round of negotiations.
The High Representative for Foreign Policy acknowledged that the Trump administration had brought both sides to the negotiating table for the first time since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, but pointed out that there was a clear imbalance between what was being asked of Kiev and what was being asked of Moscow.
"We only saw where the Ukrainians were willing to give in to end the war. We didn't see any concessions from the Russian side," Kalas told Euronews.
During that time, Trump repeatedly unsuccessfully set deadlines for ending the war.
Kalas said that the painful concessions, mainly over territory, were intended only for Ukrainians. She stressed that it was up to Ukrainians to decide what concessions they were willing to make and warned against Russian negotiating tactics.
The EU official added that the Russians are demanding the maximum, something that has never been theirs, to issue threats and ultimatums, to use force.
Meanwhile, there are increasing calls for the EU to appoint a special envoy to represent the bloc and support Ukraine in the negotiations.
Kallas did not want to speculate on names for the position, but stressed that the focus should be on the mandate and purpose of appointing the envoy.
"The point right now is not about the person, but about what and how much we want to gain from it (the appointment)," the EU's foreign policy chief told Euronews. "If the Russians think they are achieving maximum goals with the Americans, why would they talk to the Europeans," she asked.
Instead, Kalas believes that Russia must be put in a position where it “moves from pretending to negotiate to actually negotiating,” which would require the strength and unity of the West.
The EU and the US have clashed over a vision of what peace in Ukraine should look like, and the initial peace plan, negotiated directly with Russia, has raised European fears that Ukraine will be forced into a bad deal.
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