Josep Borrell: Moscow's demand to stop NATO and EU expansion is completely unacceptable
Josep Borrell. Photo: Zaro De Luca / Keystone Press Agency / Global Look Press
EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell assessed Russia's demand to stop the expansion of NATO and the EU to the east. His words in an interview with the German edition Welt.
Borrell called Moscow's conditions to stop further expansion “completely unacceptable” and noted that this was “a purely Russian agenda.” He stressed that Moscow had presented its agenda in writing for the first time. “Only the winners do this: they say that this and that are my conditions,” he stressed.
Borrell earlier called on European countries to continue to support Ukraine and other eastern neighbors in resisting Russian pressure.
On December 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced draft agreements with NATO and the United States on security guarantees. The documents contain calls not to view Moscow as an enemy, not to create a threat of military escalation and to abandon NATO's eastward expansion. Russia also suggested that the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance not include Ukraine in the organization.
