The conflict is about preserving the US role in the world, the EU’s top diplomat has said
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell attends the EU-Ukraine Association Council Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, March 20, 2024 © Dursun Aydemir / Anadolu via Getty Images
The US and the EU support Ukraine not because they love the Ukrainian people, but because this serves their geopolitical interests, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told CNN on Monday.
Appearing on Christiane Amanpour’s show, Borrell repeated the assertion of Brussels and Washington that Ukraine was not in any way involved in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow, and urged the US to pass the $60 billion aid package for Kiev.
“You know, the US has a vested interest in supporting Ukraine. Otherwise we would be giving a free pass to Russia. And you know what happens then. Remember Crimea. Remember Syria,” he told Amanpour, without explaining what any of that meant.
“We cannot afford Russia [to] win this war. Otherwise the US and European interests will be very damaged,” he added. “It’s not a matter of generosity alone, it’s not a matter of supporting Ukraine because we love Ukrainian people. It is in our own interests and it is also in the interests of the US as a global player, someone who has to be perceived as a reliable partner, a security provider to the allies.”
The proposal to send Ukraine over $60 billion in additional military aid has been stuck in the US Congress for months. Washington and its allies have provided Kiev with over $200 billion in weapons, ammunition and equipment since February 2022, shrugging off Russian warnings that this risked open confrontation and insisting that this does not make them a party to the conflict.
Both the US and the EU have insisted that Ukraine had nothing to do with the massacre at a Moscow concert venue on Friday, when over 130 people were killed by armed gunmen.
A group of ethnic Tajiks suspected in the attack was apprehended while trying to cross into Ukraine. According to President Vladimir Putin, however, Moscow is eager to find out who ordered the attack.
“This atrocity may be only a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014, using the neo-Nazi Kiev regime as their hand,” Putin said on Monday evening. “And the Nazis, as is well known, never hesitated to use the most dirty and inhumane means to achieve their goals.”
