The top diplomat of the EU accused Russia of creating a serious deterioration of the security situation in Europe while calling for dialogue to avoid conflict in Ukraine.
Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign policy, responded to Vladimir Putin's proposals for security guarantees for Russia that would effectively rewrite the post-cold war order.
Russia put forward a list of highly controversial security demands including a ban on Ukraine entering Nato, and a limit on troop and arms deployments on the alliance's eastern flank, effectively returning Nato forces to where they were in 1997, before an eastward expansion.
The Kremlin's proposals were handed over to the US and Nato, but the EU is part of the west's coordinated response to Russia's military buildup on the border with Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Borrell spoke to US secretary of state Antony Blinken, where they took note of Russia's proposals, according to an EU account of the call. The EU statement said that any further military aggression against Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe costs.
A US state department spokeswoman used the same language to describe the exchange: They emphasised the need for coordinated action to support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and reaffirmed that any Russian military aggression against Ukraine would have huge consequences for the Russian Federation. Russia has around 100,000 troops on its side of the border with Ukraine, while Putin has escalated his rhetoric, sparking fears that he is looking for a pretext for an invasion. The Russian president earlier this month said war in eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian troops have been fighting Russian backed rebels since they looked like genocide.
The EU leaders stopped short of detailing specific sanctions against Russia, but last week agreed that any further military aggression against Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe cost in response. Nato has called for Russia to withdraw its forces and said that its relationship with Ukraine is a matter between Kiev and the 30 members of the transatlantic security alliance.
Borrell said that Europe's security was under threat in his statement on Putin's security proposals.
Borrell said Russia's actions in the region of Crimea, the annexation of Crimea and the role in eastern Ukraine, the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the support for Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and the need for dialogue, negotiation and cooperation are the only means to bring peace.
The OSCE announced on Wednesday an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to restore a ceasefire.
Mikko Kinnunen, a special envoy of the OSCE in Ukraine, said that participants expressed their strong determination to fully adhere to the measures to strengthen the ceasefire agreement of 22 July 2020. This is of utmost importance for the people living on both sides of the contact line. The OSCE has a observer mission in Donbas and has reported five times as many daily violations of the ceasefire this month compared to December 2020. Despite restrictions on their movement and the jamming of GPS signals on OSCE drones, Ceasefire violations include explosions and the firing of weapons.
The agreement was reached at a meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, known as the Trilateral Contact Group, and representatives of the Kremlin-backed and Luhansk People's Republics.
Since the conflict began in 2014, many ceasefires have been agreed and collapsed. More than 14,000 people have been killed in the region, while the economy has been devastated.