A decision by Brussels to initiate the procedure of Ukraine’s accession to EU membership would signify the end of the 27-member bloc, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Glushko has warned.
Modern Ukraine is a “state where Nazi groups rule the show and Nazi ideology reigns, which is incompatible with European values,” Glushko told journalists on Friday.
If Brussels welcomes such a country “this would mean the end of the EU and would show that the EU isn't guided by the values on which it stands and was created, but purely by geopolitics,” he explained.
The bloc has accelerated moves aimed at making Kiev a member after the launch of the Russian military operation in late February.
The government of Volodymyr Zelensky has already submitted its membership questionnaire to Brussels, with the European Commission planning to announce its opinion on it in June.
Russia had initially said it wouldn’t object to Ukraine being in the EU as, unlike the US-led NATO alliance, it's not a military bloc.
But Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov revealed on Friday that Moscow has changed its stance on the issue.
The EU's behavior during the conflict, which included weapons shipments to Kiev and a push for a military solution, indicated that the bloc was in the process of merging with NATO and in the future will operate as merely its extension, Lavrov claimed.
“The EU is turning from the constructive economic platform that it was originally meant to be into an aggressive militant player that has ambitions stretching far beyond the European continent,” he said.