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EU Divisions Over Russia Mount as France, Germany Seek Peace in Ukraine

Reuters

   BRUSSELS - French and German attempts to end the conflict in east
   Ukraine risk increasing tensions that were already rising in the
   European Union over how to handle Russia and which could complicate
   peace efforts.

   Progress at talks between Russian and Ukrainian envoys have raised
   hopes of convening the first international summit in three years on
   ending the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian
   government forces.

   But some EU states, while welcoming a summit that would involve France,
   Germany, Ukraine and Russia, are worried by growing talk that the EU
   might partially lift sanctions imposed on Moscow since its seizure of
   Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

   EU divisions over how to deal with Moscow have been growing over
   overtures to the Kremlin in recent months, led by Paris.

   Comments by French President Emmanuel Macron have especially upset
   governments in EU countries that were once Soviet satellite states or
   constituent republics. Alarmed by what they see as an increasingly
   aggressive Russian foreign policy, they reject anything that might
   smack of appeasement.

   "Are we to reward Russia because they have not done anything grotesque
   in the past few months?" one EU diplomat asked.
   

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