Top EU diplomat compares Russian tactics in Ukraine to those in Syria

BRUSSELS (AA) – EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday that Russia is bombing Ukrainian cities like it did in Syria and Chechnya.

Speaking to the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Borrell said the Russia-Ukraine war “will leave a mark on history.”

He explained that the Russian leadership had planned to quickly take over Kyiv and other cities and believed that “Ukraine is weak and servile,” but the “strong resistance” stopped them.

“In response, the Russian army is doing the only thing it knows. It is bombing as it did in Aleppo, across all of Syria and in Chechnya,” Borrell noted, saying Russia will carry out its operation “without any concern for the civilian casualties.”

According to Borrell, the war in Ukraine is a “wake-up call from our dream of development and prosperity” and Europeans have to understand that “our way of life comes indeed with a cost.”

Borrell noted that the bloc has to raise its defense spending and “break the energy ties that paralyze us” and should not allow Russia to “weaponize interdependency.”

He also said that after the illegal annexation of Crimea, the EU should have permanently reduced energy imports from Russia, but it did the contrary.

Now, it needs a “collective commitment” from Europeans to consume less energy and to invest in renewables.