There is business through third countries: why Europe maintains diplomatic ties with Russia

European goods enter Russia through third countries / Collage 24 Channel / Getty Images

Despite sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Europe continues to maintain diplomatic ties with Russia. Even European Union trade through third countries remains intact.

The goods first enter third countries and are then re-exported to Russia. The head of the Tower Center for Public Analytics, Valery Klochok , suggested to Channel 24 why Europe maintains ties with the occupying country.

What is known about the relationship between Russia and Europe

Klochok emphasized that business contacts with Russia are really interesting for Europe, because the sales markets have not yet been reoriented to any others. And Russia remains a fairly powerful counterparty, ready to pay for services and goods.

They have a lot of money. In particular, from fossil energy sources. If we consider the previous year, the European Union alone paid more than 180 billion euros to the Russian treasury for coal, gas, etc. – explained the head of the Tower Center for Public Analytics.

The figure is large, but significantly years before a full-scale invasion. The difference will soon reach almost 80%. Despite this, Russia can retain the opportunities and potential to influence the European economy.

Consequently, a completely different position of European politicians is emerging. It cannot be ruled out that EU officials have long wanted to talk about freezing the Russian-Ukrainian war, reducing the intensity of shelling of Ukraine and moving to another phase of the confrontation. And subsequently talk about lifting the sanctions imposed on Russia.

How Russians launch IPSO

Klochok said that there is now a lot of talk about peace negotiations. The Russians are constantly launching the thesis through the media in the West and “stringing” many facts from Ukraine.

A scrap about relations between Europe and Russia: watch the video

For example, Vladimir Zelensky’s statement about strengthening and accelerating the construction of fortifications should supposedly mean that the Ukrainians are stopping the offensive and taking up defense. Then there are comments from Ukrainian generals and politicians that fit very well with the IPSO story about peace negotiations with the Russians. As a result, an unfavorable political information field is formed, and the military context disappears from the network.

“A very interesting thesis was voiced: “we are at the bottom of the information confrontation.” In a month or two we should come to realize the need for unity, as was the case with the beginning of a large-scale invasion. Then we had no problems and even politicians refrained from criticism,” noted Valery Klochok . .

Russian footprint in Europe: the main thing

• The head of the office of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Gergely Gulyas, said that Hungary will not support the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, as well as the allocation of 5 billion euros to it by 2027.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he does not support moving forward with negotiations on Ukraine's future membership of the European Union, once again signaling that his country could become the main obstacle to Kyiv's EU accession. Orban has long been “playing” into the hands of Russia and has never taken the side of Ukraine.
• Since November 6, Polish carriers have been blocking truck traffic at three checkpoints on the Polish-Ukrainian border. We are talking about the checkpoints “Khrebnoye – Rava-Russkaya”, “Korcheva – Krakovets”, “Dorohusk – Yagodin”. On November 23, it became known that another Medika checkpoint was blocked on Polish territory. People's Deputy from the Servant of the People party Oleg Dunda suggested that Russian agents were definitely behind the deterioration of the situation.