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February 9, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares had a joint press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv. The press-office of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported it.
“This is time for diplomatic efforts and negotiations. Now we need to concentrate on diplomacy, not on hypothetical scenarios that do not correspond to reality. The aggression scenario is not inevitable. We cannot create a prediction, which must come certainly true. Diplomats now have every chance, and we must continue our work in this direction,” Minister Albares stated.
“Europe has already agreed on a series of sanctions in case of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine. Sanctions will not be imposed in advance, our aim is to warn the aggression,” Spanish diplomat assured.
“I want to confirm the chances for a diplomatic solution to the situation, to the crisis. The sanctions, developed by the European Union, are also part of the diplomatic path. These sanctions are designed to be applied in the event of a new wave of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. But Ukraine’s position is also that in recent years Russia has committed a number of gross violations of international law and the Minsk agreements, and it should also be sanctioned for this,” Ukraine’s MFA head Kuleba noted.
Related news: Austria ready to support “painful” sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine, – MFA head Schallenberg
Since the beginning of the conflict, Kremlin has issued 720,000 passports to Ukrainians, who live in the unrecognized Donetsk and Luhansk republics. According to Kuleba, this is a gross violation of the Minsk peace agreements.
Earlier, Jose Manuel Albares noted that Europeans had a united position on the crisis over the Russian military build-up on the Ukrainian border. Spain has sent warships to join NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea as tension in the region rises. “Our position is very clear: the respect of the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea,” Albares said during his official visit to Washington in January 2022.
In January 2022, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez stated Russia would face massive economic consequences if it launched any kind of military intervention in Ukraine.
As reported before, February 7-8, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock has been visiting Ukraine. UA has gathered the key messages of the German minister here.
February 7-8, Foreign Ministers Jan Lipavský (the Czech Republic), Alexander Schallenberg (Austria), and Ivan Korčok (Slovakia) had a joint visit to Ukraine as part of the Slavkov trilateral.
February 8, French President Emmanuel Macron met with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Here are the most crucial points of their meeting.
