STRASBOURG, February 9. /TASS/. Russia and the European Union must find a new approach to the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, since the war in Ukraine is a road to nowhere, a Russian lawmaker said on Monday.
"I think that passions are now running high and mutual accusations make up the political picture. I think we must find a new approach stressing the readiness of French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to come out with a new initiative and avoid a situation of absolute loss of control," Alexey Pushkov, the chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, said at a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The Russian lawmaker said he had arrived in Strasbourg at the invitation of the Committee’s chair Elmar Brok not to "plunge into an ideological war" and try to press the members of the European Parliament for "accepting Russia’s point of view."
He provided a number of facts about the real situation in the zone of combat operations in eastern Ukraine, about deaths of civilians and damage to buildings caused by Ukrainian army’s shelling. He underscored that the Ukrainian conflict could not be interpreted black-and-white terms.
"The war leads to nowhere. This war may go on for a long time, with low intensity," Pushkov said, stressing that in case the United States ultimately began arms supplies, the conflict might flare up again and become a total conflict.
"This war might spread to pose a real threat to the entire European system of security," he said, adding that the crisis could be settled only by political means.