EU warns of Putin 'trap' as it mulls future Russia envoy | DW News

Ajouté : 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]It's a trap that Russia wants us to walk into that we discuss who talks to them.

[00:00:05]Europe has been on the hunt for a Russia whisperer, some sort of special envoy who could represent the EU's interests at any future talks on peace in Ukraine.

[00:00:13]These names have all been floated, though ex-gererman Chancellor Angela Merkel has more or less ruled herself out. Ukraine wants the EU to step up diplomatically as the US steps back. We need to seize the opportunity uh of the US decision to pose their involvement in the negotiation process between Ukraine and Russia in order to be finally uh at the the table. And uh we also have to define uh someone to to embody uh also uh the European message. But there's also very real concern here that focusing on who the messenger might be is just playing into Moscow's distraction tactics because despite the talk of diplomacy, Russia has been stepping up strikes on Ukraine and even threatening to kill EU diplomats in Kiev.

[00:01:02]>> Whoever would like to go right now, this guy is not going to have a Nobel Prize because there won't be any serious talks. So more pressure because we see the first signs that Putin is now weaker.

[00:01:14]>> Then there's the much bigger question of the message itself. The EU's top diplomat Kayakalas wants member states to set clear red lines like demanding restrictions on Russia's army in future and demanding Russia withdraw its troops from Georgia and Moldova. I asked the EU's foreign affairs chief if there was any sort of consensus on these conditions which she herself acknowledges are maximalist and she was pretty vague.

[00:01:40]>> Nobody was opposing that. So uh so it is still there. Russia was quick to dismiss this idea as idiotic despite its own very similar demands for curbs on Ukraine's military.