EU diplomacy and security chief activates ‘crisis response center’

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced today the activation of a “crisis response center” to coordinate monitoring of the situation in Russia by the European Union.

“Ahead of the meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Monday, I am coordinating the situation in the European Union and have activated the crisis response center,” Borrell wrote on Twitter.

The head of European diplomacy, who exchanged “views on the situation in Russia” with G7 foreign ministers, stressed that EU support for Ukraine “remains unflagging.”

The head of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, suspended rebel movements in Russia against military commanders at the end of the day to avoid “bloodshed” at the end of the day, less than 24 hours after occupying Rostov, a key city in the south of the country for the war in Ukraine.

Josep Borrell will chair a council of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday that is expected to discuss further support for Ukraine, as well as ways to hold Russia accountable for the war and the president’s peace plan. questions, including an analysis of the Wagnerian episode in Russia.

In particular, the ministers hope to formally approve a decision to expand the European Peace Fund, through which they co-finance arms supplies to Ukraine, by another 3.5 billion euros in 2018 prices.

On the other hand, no agreement is expected to provide Ukraine with a new tranche of 500 million euros from this fund, according to various diplomatic and EU sources, EFE reports.

At the height of the crisis in Russia, Ukraine announced today that it has launched a new offensive in the country’s east to retake territory occupied by Russian forces.

European leaders will meet in Brussels Thursday and Friday next week for a new European summit planned for several months that will end Sweden’s rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the group’s actions a riot, saying it was a “mortal threat” to the Russian state and a betrayal to ensure there would be no “civil war”.

At the end of the day, when it became known about the advance of the Wagnerites about 200 kilometers from Moscow, Prigozhin announced that he had agreed on an agreement with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Earlier, the head of the paramilitary group accused the Russian army of attacking its mercenary camps, resulting in “a very high number of casualties,” accusations that reveal deep tensions within Moscow’s forces over the offensive in Ukraine.