Russia says EU-Ukraine summit serves West’s ‘hegemonic aspirations’

Russia said the EU-Ukraine summit on Friday confirmed that the 27-member bloc’s support for Kyiv is just for the sake of serving the US and NATO’s “hegemonic aspirations”.

In a written response, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the European Union, by “violating” its own standard requirements for candidacy and declaring “common values” with Kyiv, stands in solidarity with “the total suppression of dissent, violation of freedom of speech and expression, gross violation of linguistic and confessional rights in Ukraine”.

Zakharova called the EU’s readiness to provide further support to Ukraine while calling for peace “equally hypocritical,” saying all of the EU’s military deliveries and financial support towards Kyiv leads to “an increase in the number of victims of the conflict, including those among the civilian population”.