Michel Preps EU Leaders for Russia Strategy Ahead of EU Summit (24-25 May)

LOCAL NEWS

• Ahead of the May 24-25 EU Summit Charles Michel sends invitation to EU heads upcoming "strategic debate" about Russia, in whose actions he sees "provocative steps."
  • Says discussions will be accompanied by a "report by the High Representative and the (Euro) Commission in accordance with the five guiding principles of relations between the EU and Russia"
• EU Summit (24-25 May) to discuss possible sanctions against Belarus after Lukashenko forced a Ryanair flight carrying opposition member Roman Protasevich to land in Minsk escorted by a fighter jet.
  • US condemned the incident, saying the incident will be fully investigated. Poland has already said it would propose sanctions at today's meeting.
• UK Defense Chief Wallace says Russia remains its number one adversary threat. "we have tried de-escalation,
  • but at the moment until Russia changes its attitude its quite hard to see where we are going to go." Wallace noted Russian warships were increasingly active in the vicinity of UK borders
• Russian FM spox says Joint EU-Russia projects have been frozen due to anti-Russian sanctions and aggressive rhetoric from Brussels.
  • Comes after Austrian FM said the EU wanted to build a dialogue with Russia ahead of today's EU summit, but Russia was not interested
• Late on Friday, US Treasury endorsed sanctions on Russian companies & ships related to Nord Stream 2.
  • 13 Russian ships involved in the project were blacklisted and 3 Russian legal entities