EU must 'engage' with average Russians: Mogherini
Tensions between the West and Russia spiralled to their worst since the end of the Cold War.
RIGA (AFP) - The European Union must engage with average Russians, especially youth, to improve relations that are at their worst since the Cold War, the bloc s foreign policy chief said Friday.
"We have to engage with the people of Russia starting from the young people...to encourage them to see the European Union with their own eyes and build contacts across Europe," Federica Mogherini said in the Latvian capital Riga.
"We cannot lose generations of young Russians," she said, speaking to parliamentarians from across the EU who are there to discuss common foreign, security and defence policy.
Tensions between the West and Russia spiralled to their worst since the end of the Cold War after Moscow annexed Ukraine s Crimean peninsula last year.
"The European Union has never and will never seek confrontation with Russia," Mogherini said, adding that it was "not in the European Union DNA to seek confrontation".
Last year, the EU and US imposed sanctions primarily targeting senior officials in President Vladimir Putin s administration amid fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine bordering Russia.
Mogherini was upbeat about the sputtering so-called Minsk II ceasefire between the warring sides that the EU and Russia brokered last month.
"So far the ceasefire has been starting -- not perfect -- with some violations still, and I discussed that with Ukrainian President (Petro) Poroshenko last night," Mogherini said.
"But for sure the trend is a positive one, even if not perfect at all and we know that very well," she said, adding that another wave of sanctions against Moscow was always an option should the ceasefire fail.
