German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock is seeking to revive the four-nation “Normandy” format to de-escalate tensions over Ukraine, as she visited Kyiv en route to Moscow to push for European-led negotiations.
The EU, while trying to prevent the possibility of a full-blown Russian invasion, was sidelined from security talks last week between Russia and the US, Nato and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Moscow wrote off the talks as a “dead end”.
Baerbock and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Monday they were united in pushing to revive the “Normandy” peace talks format between Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.