Putin’s speech in St. Petersburg and European leaders’ visits to Kiev. Comment from the guests of “Faktów po Faktach”

Many European leaders in recent days visited Kyiv. The President of France arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Thursday Emmanuel MacronGerman chancellor Olaf SchulzPrime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. A day later, he appeared in Kyiv Prime Minister Great Britain Boris Johnson.

Also on Friday European Commission Expressing a positive opinion on granting Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries for membership in the European Union.

– The Ukrainians expected this from Maidan, i.e. from 2014. We are fighting for this, said Mikolai Knyazits, journalist, politician and deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of the Verkhovna Rada of the “Fakty po Faktach”. As assessed, Ukraine now has an open path to EU membership.

– It will not be easy, because it will depend not only on the European Union, but also on the Ukrainians, because we have to change our legislation. We will work on it – announced.

He noted that during the visit of European politicians to Kyiv, there was no talk of possible negotiations with Putin. – Of course, everyone says there may be such negotiations one day, but no one knows when. Because Putin does not want any negotiations. Kniażycki said he wanted to, but he really didn’t.

– The fact that they (European leaders – ed.) were together was very important to us. And he admitted that the fact that not only Poland supports us now, for which we thank the Poles, not only the Baltic states, but Germany and France together, the largest countries of the European Union, is very important for us.

Jerzy Maria Nowak, the former Polish ambassador to NATO, assessed that the European Commission’s positive opinion on Ukraine’s membership in the group “is a very strong signal to Putin that there will be no consent to restore the sphere of influence that Putin wants.” .

– Second, that there will be no appeasement since 1938, that there will be no Munich here, where the great powers, in this case in Ukraine, impose some solutions that will be beneficial to Putin – he said. He added, however, that “as always in diplomacy, there is some ambiguity remaining.” At this point, he noted, the German chancellor “is already saying that he is still counting on talking to Putin.”

The former ambassador said that “from a diplomatic point of view” he was deeply impressed by the visit of European leaders to Kyiv. – This is a signal to the whole world that Ukraine has become our country, that it has become European – according to his assessment.

At the same time, he expressed doubts about the thesis that “Russia is on the verge of collapse” due to Western sanctions. It is well known that we have run out of patience and want these sanctions to have immediate results. He argued that there is no such thing, you have to wait here.

Nowak also referred to Vladimir Putin’s speech on Friday at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. In his opinion, the speech of the Russian president was “chaotic and unpredictable.” I think one of the biggest misfortunes from a diplomatic point of view is that Putin becomes unpredictable and irrational. Because he was rational for a while. He said he was now preparing that the West would collapse and split. I can not see it. This visit (to Western leaders), however, is a contradiction to that, he said.