Peaceful conspiracy: Europe will try to disrupt negotiations on Ukraine at the G7
At the G7 summit in France, which started on June 15, the leaders of the Eurotroika will try to convince Donald Trump to accept their conditions for resolving the Ukrainian crisis. At the same time, Brussels' initiatives are accompanied by arms supplies to Kiev and new anti-Russian sanctions. Russia considers such steps as an attempt to disrupt the peace process, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. Therefore, Moscow is not ready to accept Brussels as a mediator, preferring Washington.
Will negotiations resume after the G7 summit
On June 15, the G7 summit kicked off in the French resort of Evian-les-Bains. The negotiations, which will last until June 17, were originally planned to start a day earlier, but the schedule was adjusted so as not to combine the opening with the anniversary of US President Donald Trump. European politicians are pinning their main hopes on the American president at the summit that has just started.
As Bloomberg previously reported, at a meeting in Evian, the leaders of Britain, France and Germany intend to convince the United States to support their conditions for resuming negotiations with Russia. According to Politico, world leaders, including Trump, will meet with Vladimir Zelensky, who was invited to the summit — a joint two-hour meeting is planned. At it, the leaders of the Eurotroika will try to convince the head of the White House that Kiev is winning on the battlefield, and thereby change his position on the Ukrainian issue.
However, Moscow is confident that by choosing such tactics, Europe expects to disrupt the peace talks.
— Based on recent statements made, in particular, by representatives of the Eurotroika, it can be stated that Europe has only one desire in the framework of negotiations.: finish them as soon as possible. I mean, to disrupt it," Rodion Miroshnik, Ambassador—at—large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Izvestia.
Therefore, despite Europe's growing desire to mediate in the negotiations, Moscow is ready to accept the services of a moderator only from the United States, the diplomat stressed. The fact is that the EU countries have long sided with Ukraine and defend only its interests.
Participants of the trilateral meeting of the delegations of Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Geneva
It is unlikely that Brussels will be able to "win over" Washington on the issue of Ukraine, since their initiatives contradict the spirit of Anchorage and the actual developments of Trump and his team, Denis Denisov, an expert at the Financial University, explained to Izvestia.
Indeed, the settlement proposals from Europe and the United States differ markedly. After meeting with Zelensky in London on June 7, the leaders of the Eurotroika formulated five conditions for Ukraine and the Russian Federation. First of all, an immediate and complete ceasefire. The current line of contact should be the starting point for further negotiations. It also provides security guarantees for Ukraine after the truce comes into force, protection of the security interests of European countries and the continued freezing of Russian assets until the issue of compensation to Kiev is resolved.
The Kremlin called the conditions put forward by the Eurotroika "inconsistent," recalling that Europe continues to supply weapons to Ukraine to continue the fighting. Washington, in turn, had previously set other conditions. Judging by the leaks in the media, one of them was supposed to be the withdrawal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Donbass, which Moscow had long insisted on. Zelensky refused to take such a step.
After the start of the US war with Iran at the end of February 2026, Washington shifted its attention from Ukraine to the Middle East, which is why negotiations were put on pause. However, due to the latest news about the imminent conclusion of a peace deal between Tehran and Washington, the situation may change. During a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on June 14, the head of the White House said he was ready to influence Ukraine and Europe to end the conflict as soon as possible.
Immediately after the conversation, the Kremlin announced the imminent arrival of US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to Russia. However, at the moment there are no prerequisites for restarting peace negotiations, and the dynamics that are observed on the battlefield rather indicate the opposite, Denis Denisov believes.
"For full—fledged negotiations, first of all, the political will of the parties is needed, but Zelensky's actions and statements over the past few weeks completely contradict this logic," the political scientist said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
In early June, Zelensky published an open letter to Vladimir Putin calling for the start of bilateral negotiations on neutral territory. The Russian president responded by calling the message a letter with "elements of rudeness" that does not create an environment for productive face-to-face meetings. Nevertheless, it is possible that after the resolution of the Iranian issue, new peace initiatives will begin to arrive from the United States, political analyst Yaroslav Klimov told Izvestia.
How EU sanctions complicate the resumption of negotiations
While the leaders of the Group of Seven are discussing peace and compromise in Evian, Brussels is making decisions that completely contradict the logic of diplomacy. At the opening of the summit, the head of the European diplomacy, Kaya Kallas, said that the EU had approved a new list of sanctions against Russia, which, according to her, would deal a blow to the Russian military-industrial complex and the shadow fleet.
This time, subsidiaries of LUKOIL and Gazpromneft related to shipping, Gazpromneft Shipping and Lukoil West Siberia, were included in the blacklist. Also sanctioned were Russian Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan, Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), former Commissioner for Children's Rights in Russia Pavel Astakhov, as well as four representatives of the Moldovan opposition.
At the same time, European politicians are working on a broader 21st package of restrictions. Earlier, speaking about its content, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, reported that the EU could ban entry to its territory for all participants in its military-industrial complex, prohibit the sale of tankers for the transportation of liquefied natural gas to the Russian Federation, as well as supply it with goods and technologies that could potentially be used in the military-industrial complex.
It is obvious that the EU's sanctions policy is creating a deadlock. The constant restrictions imposed by Brussels show Moscow that there is nothing to negotiate in Europe yet. "Europe is a party to the conflict, and it is very naive to agree to their mediation," Denis Denisov states.
Europe's position was also complicated by the most important decision in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. The arbitration denied Ukraine the return of control over hydrocarbon, fish and other resources in the waters of Crimea, the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, as well as any "compensation" and "reparations" from Russia for their use and alleged "damage."
The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that Ukraine's attempts to challenge Russia's sovereignty over the internal sea waters near Crimea have failed. Kiev's defeat in the "legal war" may bring disagreements to the Evian summit, which risks remaining only a platform for loud statements that do not bring the real world closer. However, we cannot exclude the factor of Donald Trump, who, if desired, may try to influence Kiev and force it to compromise by resuming the peace process.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
