UNITED NATIONS, May 13. /TASS/. The difference between NATO and the European Union is becoming less and less apparent for Russia, because Brussels is taking an increasingly belligerent stance, including recent remarks by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said in an interview with the UK-based UnHerd News portal on Thursday.
"The situation has changed after Mr. Borrell’s statement that this war should be won on the battleground and after the fact that the European Union is the leader of deliveries of arms. I think that our position on the European Union now is more similar to NATO, because we don’t see the difference," he said when asked how important Ukraine’s non-accession to the European Union was for Russia.
After his visit to Ukraine on April 8-9, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell declared full support to Ukraine in Twitter, including arms shipments, and added that this war "will be won on the battlefields." This marked the first time that a European official of such level openly advocated military, not diplomatic, resolution of an armed conflict. Later, Borrell confirmed EU’s intention to achieve military resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and to expand military aid to the country.