DUSHANBE, May 13. /TASS/. The innocuousness of Kiev’s desire to join the European Union causes doubts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
"They [Ukraine] are trying to emphasize in every way their aspiration to become members of the European Union. [Ukrainian Foreign Minister] Dmitry Kuleba recently said that the European Union has to say "yes" or "no" practically right now. <...> Yet the most important thing is that this is an issue of relations between Kiev and the European Union. Yet the innocuousness of such a desire by Kiev causes serious doubts. It is indeed like this, taking into account that the European Union, from a constructive and economic platform as it was conceived, turned into an aggressive belligerent player," he said at a press conference following a meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers in Dushanbe.
According to the Russian top diplomat, the European Union aspires to follow NATO’s path, "confirming the trend that they are fusing with the North Atlantic Alliance and will essentially function as its appendage."
That said, Lavrov noted that Ukraine, despite public statements by its leadership that it was a mistake to reject nuclear weapons, in its contacts with Russia declares its readiness to obtain a non-aligned and neutral status if it receives guarantees beyond NATO and beyond other military and political blocs.