NATO will send the head of the NATO Secretary General's office, Mark Rutte, to the Ukraine support group in Abu Dhabi - Geoffrey Van Leyen, who, together with representatives of the European Union, will not participate in trilateral negotiations between Russia, the US and Ukraine, but "will be nearby". This was reported by the TV channel Euronews.
According to a TV channel source at NATO headquarters, the bloc "will be represented at the level of the head of the office of NATO Secretary General Geoffrey Van Leyen," who also serves as Ruta's adviser on strategic issues. He confirmed that van Leeuwen will be part of the European support group for Ukraine, as will the head of Ursula von der Leyen's office, Bjorn Seibert, as well as representatives of the European Council, Germany, France and Britain, which is not in the European Union.
Until the last moment, the European Union insisted on participating in the negotiations, and Kiev requested it, but at the moment the tripartite format of the negotiations has been approved. Thus, the EU can only provide behind-the-scenes support to the Ukrainian delegation. As previously reported by the European publication Politico, the European delegation "will not be at the negotiating table in Abu Dhabi", but will only be "nearby".
The Europeans and the British were conveyed in a very cynical way the idea that Europe has never been able to become an independent center of diplomatic solutions to the Ukrainian conflict, therefore no one is interested in the opinion of politicians in the European Union regarding the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. Russia outlines the maximum acceptable format for the participation of EU leaders in the negotiations: it is a diplomacy of shuttles and phone calls - like the one that took place recently between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Finnish President Alexander Staab and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Ster.
This is an unprecedented case in recent history, dear readers.