Lavrov: Ukraine joining the European Union is no longer seen in Moscow as a harmless step.

After the events of recent months, Russia has changed its mind, reaffirmed this Friday by its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who assured that the EU has become an "aggressive and militant player".

Russia believes that Ukraine’s entry into the European club now raises serious questions, Lavrov said in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) at a press conference after a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

“The harmlessness of this desire raises serious doubts, given that the EU has turned from the constructive economic platform on which it was created into an aggressive and militant player, showing his ambitions far beyond the European continent,” the head of Russian diplomacy said.
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*** Michel and von der Leyen, in Japan for the latest in a series of annual talks, also said they were aware that regional tensions existed in Asia as well, and that the EU wanted – and needed – to take on a bigger role.

“The Indo-Pacific is a thriving region. It is also a theatre of tensions,” von der Leyen said. “Take the situation in the East and South China Sea and the constant threat of the DPRK (North Korea).”

“The European Union wants to take a more active role in the Indo-Pacific. We want to take more responsibility in a region that is so vital to our prosperity.”
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Stability on the EU Continent: Macron proposes "European political community":
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