MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. The European Union's attempts to assume a seat at the negotiating table on the Ukrainian conflict settlement are baseless, and a recent decision to cut short the staff of the Russian diplomatic mission in Brussels confirms this, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
"It is a principled matter that we [Russia] are not allowed to be engaged in diplomatic matters either on our part or in the context of the Ukrainian settlement," Zakharova said at a news briefing.
"The emphasis is solely on sanctions, forceful methods, pressure, blackmail, which are their favorite," she continued. "Therefore, in this case, the European Union's aspirations to assume some kind of a seat at the negotiating table on Ukraine [peace settlement], are ungrounded whatsoever."
"This part of the response to the relevant actions on behalf of the European Union, not even the EU itself, but on behalf of [European Union Foreign Affairs policy chief] Kaja Kallas, will be especially pleasant to them," Zakharova noted.
The Russian diplomat stressed that Kallas "emphatically takes credit for herself making decisions in regard to cut [Russian] diplomatic missions."
