Despite the best efforts of the leading war hawks, there are a number of EU nations that are not willing to engage in a direct war with Russia yet. At a press conference following a meeting among EU defense ministers in Brussels on August 29, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that there will be no policy throughout the EU of allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike targets inside of Russia.
“The member states have decided that this is something that belongs to the bilateral decisions of each member state providing equipment to Ukraine.… There was a strategic discussion about it but this remains a national policy [matter] and member states want it to be a national decision on bilateral relations with Ukraine,” Borrell said. Borrell has repeatedly pushed for the lifting of these restrictions, but faced enough opposition from within other EU member states to be forced to back down.
