MOSCOW, April 21. /TASS/. The European Union is drifting towards turning itself from an economic alliance into a military-political one and Moscow bears this in mind at the talks with Kiev, the director of the Foreign Ministry’s second department of the CIS countries, Alexey Polishchuk, told TASS in an interview.
"We have been closely following what is happening in the European Union, which has been building up its military component and drifting away from its current status of an economic association towards a military-political alliance. Incidentally, paragraph 7 of article 42 of the EU Treaty is identical to article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in Washington, which envisages mutual assistance with the use of all means. We cannot but bear this in mind at the negotiations with Ukraine," Polishchuk said.
In this connection, he added, Russia invariably recalls the neutral status of Moldova, proclaimed in its Constitution.
After visiting Ukraine on April 8-9, the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted that "this war will be won on the battlefield." For the first time in modern history a high-ranking European official openly came out for a military settlement of an armed conflict, and not a diplomatic one. Later Borrell confirmed the EU’s intention to press for resolving the conflict in Ukraine from the position of strength and to expand military assistance to that country.