EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Paris on Monday she saw little Russian goodwill to negotiate peace in Ukraine, The Straits Times reported from a Reuters interview. Moscow, she argued, is “just pretending” to negotiate while bombing civilians.

Kallas spoke on the sidelines of a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting ahead of Ukraine–Russia–US talks in Abu Dhabi on 10 November, also involving officials from France, Britain, Germany, NATO and the European Commission. “We haven’t seen any goodwill from the Russian side. They are bombing Kyiv, they are bombing civilians,” she said.

Ukrainian forces are making battlefield advances, she added, while Russia focuses on civilian targets “to cause as much suffering before the hard winter.” Moscow denies targeting civilians but has stepped up strikes on energy infrastructure.

On a “broader European security architecture” floated by US negotiator Jared Kushner, Kallas said Europe already has agreements Russia signed — including the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — and failed to honour. “All this talk has to be about how we make sure that Russia actually respects the obligations that it has taken.”

Amid European friction — Giorgia Meloni warned Europe could become irrelevant if states run separate diplomatic tracks — Kallas said European security issues should be led by the EU under its treaties, not ad-hoc formats.

With the EU negotiating a 22nd sanctions package, she hoped Republican midterm losses would increase pressure on Russia, including via US sanctions: “If we were to do this together with the Americans, it would really have an effect.”

Image: Kaja Kallas at the Vatican (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0).

Sources consulted: EU’s Kallas: Russia ‘pretending’ to negotiate on Ukraine while ‘bombing civilians’ — The Straits Times.