Ukraine\u2019s European allies say now is not the time for lifting sanctions on Russia, after Moscow said it would only agree to a US-brokered deal on ending fighting in the Black Sea if some sanctions were eased. <\/p>\n
The leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany all affirmed at a summit on Thursday that Europe will not lift sanctions on Russia \u2013 a strong and seemingly coordinated message to the Trump administration, which has said it is still evaluating the Kremlin\u2019s demands. <\/p>\n
They spoke after a meeting of the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d in Paris which discussed how to bolster support for Kyiv and what role they might play if a peace deal is struck with Russia. <\/p>\n
While divisions remain among the leaders about how to respond, they spoke in unison on Russia\u2019s demand to ease sanctions. <\/p>\n
\u201c(There is) complete clarity that now is not the time for lifting of sanctions,\u201d British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. <\/p>\n
\u201cQuite the contrary \u2013 what we discussed is how we can increase sanctions to support the US initiative, to bring Russia to the table through further pressure from this group of countries,\u201d the British Prime Minister said, still striking a conciliatory tone toward the United States. <\/p>\n
Starmer said the meeting involved more than 30 countries, including Ukraine\u2019s European allies and NATO officials. He described the meeting as \u201cvery constructive.\u201d <\/p>\n
Echoing Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said stopping sanctions would be a \u201cserious mistake.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes no sense to end the sanctions until peace has actually been achieved, and unfortunately we are still a long way from that, as you can see.\u201d <\/p>\n
This week the US announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to end fighting in the Black Sea. But Moscow soon followed up the statement by saying it would only implement the deal once some of the sanctions imposed on Russian banks and exports over its invasion of Ukraine are lifted. <\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States is \u201cgoing to evaluate\u201d Russia\u2019s conditions to agreeing to a Black Sea partial ceasefire. <\/p>\n
When the US negotiators return from Saudi Arabia, Rubio said, they will be \u201csitting down, going through the proposals, getting their impressions of the conversations, so we can more fully understand what the Russian position is, or what their ask is in exchange.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was absolute clarity that Russia is trying to delay, is playing games. And we have to be absolutely clear about that,\u201d Starmer added, speaking to reporters alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. <\/p>\n
Zelensky also called for \u201cmore pressure\u201d and \u201cmore packages of sanctions\u201d on Russia. Countries at the summit in Paris agreed on \u201cno lifting of any kind of sanctions until Russia will stop this war,\u201d Zelensky said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re dragging-out the talks and trying to get the US stuck in endless, pointless discussions about fake \u2018conditions\u2019 just to buy time and then try to grab more land,\u201d Zelensky added in a social media post, highlighting that Ukrainian intelligence indicates Russian forces are getting ready for new offensives against the Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
\u201cPutin wants to negotiate over territory from a stronger position. He\u2019s thinking only about war,\u201d Zelensky said. <\/p>\n
France also shed more light on a proposal to send forces drawn from European armies to Ukraine in the event that a ceasefire is reached. <\/p>\n
France and the United Kingdom previously floated the idea of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine and said they would be willing to put boots on the ground. But their latest discussions have honed in an alternate term: \u201creassurance forces.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThese would be forces from a number of states\u2026 present in strategic locations pre-identified with the Ukrainians which would provide long-term support, reassurance for the armies and act as a deterrent to potential Russian aggression,\u201d Macron said Thursday, adding that the forces would never serve as a \u201csubstitution for the Ukrainian army.\u201d <\/p>\n
The French president also announced plans for a French-British team to be sent to Ukraine to help Kyiv \u201cprepare the format of tomorrow\u2019s Ukrainian army.\u201d <\/p>\n
The United States is not currently a member of the \u2018Coalition of the Willing\u2019 with Macron acknowledging that although he \u201chopes\u201d the US would support a European deployment to Ukraine, Europe needs to \u201cprepare for a situation where they [the US] will not commit\u201d to Ukraine\u2019s security. <\/p>\n
Russia has repeatedly said it would consider any foreign military presence in Ukraine \u201cunacceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s European allies say now is not the time for lifting sanctions on Russia, after Moscow said it would only agree to a US-brokered deal on ending fighting in the Black Sea if some sanctions were eased. The leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany all affirmed at a summit on Thursday that Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}