MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Disagreements over Ukraine policy revealed deep EU divisions; the US approved a record $11.1·bln arms sale to Taiwan; the EAEU and Iran plan to advance the North-South International Transport Corridor, which could reach full capacity by the late 2020s. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
The first day of the EU summit took place in Brussels. Its participants, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, allegedly achieved a breakthrough by agreeing that the seizure of Russian assets would be a fair decision. However, a number of countries remain skeptical of Brussels’ initiative, which Russia openly labels as theft. Such intentions by European leaders only undermine the peace process, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, told Izvestia. In his view, new security guarantees for Ukraine, which were also discussed at the summit, further push back the prospects for a peace settlement, as Brussels is deliberately imposing a condition that is unacceptable to Russia.
European politicians are doing everything they can to prolong the active phase of the Ukrainian conflict, Leonid Slutsky told Izvestia. "Brussels, in essence, is not even trying to hide that it has no intention of engaging in any discussion about peace. All of Donald Trump’s plans to achieve a ‘peace deal’ on the Ukrainian conflict in the foreseeable future will continue to be disrupted by representatives of the European ‘party of war,’" he said.
