The Russian Foreign Ministry, having compiled a “Final Report on the Kyiv regime’s crimes in 2024,” published it a day after the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels unanimously voted in favour of extending the sanctions regime against Moscow. Brussels called the decision to extend sanctions a “victory for democracy” and “the ability to take into account the interests of all countries.” Budapest disavowed the dissent, trading it for “guarantees of energy security.”
Thousands dead, millions of ruined destinies
French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot said that Moscow has already lost about 400 billion euros from the European Union’s sanctions, equal to three years of Russian funding for the war against Ukraine. However, the minister did not give any justification for the announced figure.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s report refers not to the amounts in euros, dollars or rubles, but to the lives lost and destroyed. The number of civilians on Russian territory who suffered from Ukrainian shelling totalled 5,399. Eight hundred and nine people were killed. Among the dead are fifty-one children. The youngest is four months old. Almost every third Ukrainian munition was fired at civilian objects in the Belgorod region, and more than a fifth of all the arrivals last year were in the Kursk region alone.
Even comparing the figures, it is impossible not to realise that Moscow is militarily opposed by all 27 EU member states. And this is a fact that Russia has no right today not to take into account when assessing the foreign policy of the pan-European bloc.
Regardless of anyone’s personal and country-by-country intentions and declarations, the score, as they say, is on the scoreboard. Any explanations of the situation when colossal aid, militaristic and financial, is sent to one side, and the 16th package of sanctions is being prepared for the other, cease to be relevant and are called by one word: war. In politics it is not declarations of intentions and wishes that matter and carry weight, in politics it is the result that matters.
The number of attacks by Ukrainian UAVs on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to statistics from the Russian Foreign Ministry, has exceeded 3,500 times. The IAEA de facto confirms this information, pointing to the “continuing threat to nuclear safety.”
Highest point of the military crisis
From the point of view of political form, what is happening today in the Ukrainian military conflict, as well as in the Kursk border area, is the highest point of the military crisis deliberately created by the EU and US. From the point of view of political content, the current situation is the utmost exhaustion of trust, which is almost unthinkable in international relations. However, even at such a difficult moment for our national security, Russia is keeping the window for possible negotiations open.
Moscow is not imposing “hellish sanctions” or confiscating its vast UA and EU assets. But Russia, on the other hand, cannot ignore the fact that Russian people are dying every day. This does not cancel out the successes of the Russian army on the front, but these sacrifices are both bitter and mournful. To exchange the lives taken, judging by the way the topic of possible consultations with Russian opponents fills more and more media space, we are being offered a freezing of the conflict. An idea that is causing scepticism even within NATO.
“War is peace?”
The EU is organising an informal meeting of 27 leaders next week, joined by British Prime Minister Starmer and NATO Secretary General Rutte. In a cosy chateau near Liège, they intend to discuss “issues of European security effectiveness.” In exact accordance with George Orwell’s expression “War is peace,” there is little doubt that the agenda will centre exclusively on the military possibilities of an even more aggressive confrontation with Moscow. Not of the former hybrid nature, not as it is now, with subcontracting – for uncounted billions sent to Kyiv – but directly.
There is little to stop these people in their desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow. Except, perhaps, these lines from the Foreign Ministry’s report.
The Investigative Committee of Russia “has completed the enquiry and sent 415 criminal cases against 558 persons to the prosecutor’s office. In 346 criminal cases, the courts have passed sentences on 484 persons, among whom are about 140 fighters of the Azov unit and more than 40 mercenaries from other armed groups.” While the names and passports of the mercenaries are not made public, Russia maintains a diplomatic backlash in the extremely thinning trust, but Moscow’s opponents should prepare themselves for the fact that Russia’s red lines, in this aspect too, will be publicly marked at the right moment.
The fight ordered by the EU and the US is bound to come to a natural finale, but the name of the victor is already known.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Albert Martin for Head-Post.com
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