EU made ‘big strategic mistake’ on Russia – Albanian PM

(SeaPRwire) –   The EU bloc needs to resume dialogue with Moscow if it wants to have any input in resolving the Ukraine conflict, Edi Rama has stated

The European Union committed a “major strategic error” by cutting off all lines of communication with Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told Politico in an interview released on Friday.

In 2022, the bloc ramped up its sanctions pressure on Moscow and halted diplomatic interactions, while also providing Kiev with hundreds of billions of dollars in financial and military support.

“Europe must always, always, always maintain dialogue with everyone,” Rama told Politico at the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece, asserting that the EU harmed its own interests when it “closed every channel of communication with Russia.”

The “longer we delay this, the less influence we will have in the end, because Russia—no matter how this war concludes—isn’t going away,” he noted, adding that he was being straightforward because his country has no “reliance on Russia.”

Moscow has repeatedly rejected European nations’ public requests to be included in the negotiations.

The EU has already “totally discredited itself” as a mediator, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated last month, dismissing French and British plans to deploy troops in Ukraine as part of security guarantees for Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that European leaders intentionally put forward demands they know are “entirely unacceptable to Russia” to undermine US peace initiatives and pin the failure of negotiations on Moscow.