By Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries
WICKLOW, Ireland, Sept 2 (Reuters) – The attempted attack in Leipzig had all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday, adding that Europe needs to coordinate on what more can be done given the escalation of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine.
The German government said on Tuesday that it had concluded that Russia was responsible for the attempted drone attack last month.
Speaking ahead of an informal gathering of European foreign ministers in Ireland, Kallas also said that work is ongoing on 1,600 sanctions listings related to Russia’s military complex and “maybe there are more to be added”.
Ministers arriving at the meeting said the bloc needs to look for more ways to put pressure on Moscow.
“I think we need to now really explore all the options on the table in terms of tightening the sanctions,” Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen told reporters.
Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said Europeans need to consider their options and respond.
“It is obvious Russia does not see the political cost of its hybrid activities against us. So for them, this is the cheap way to make tensions in our society,” he said, adding that “our goal is to show that these activities will neither intimidate us nor prevent us from supporting Ukraine and maintaining our pressure on Russia”.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the EU will work on imposing further sanctions on Russian individuals in the coming weeks.
“Pressure on Russia is being stepped up and support for Ukraine also remains at a high level. That is the unity we are demonstrating at this time,” he said.
‘CLOSE THE UKRAINIAN SKY’
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Ukrainians are suffering daily attacks and that Kyiv is working with European countries who have interceptors in storage.
“I hope that we will have additional strong decisions to close the Ukrainian sky,” he said.
Some European ministers pointed to risks stemming from Russia’s activities following the Leipzig incident.
“We are lucky that nothing happened, but we see what happened in Romania, what happened in so many countries,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel said when arriving for the talks.
“We see that there is no will from the Russian side to de-escalate. It’s my neighbouring country so the danger is coming closer,” he added.
Romania has reported repeated breaches of its airspace by Russian drones over the past four years, as well as mines floating in the Black Sea across key trade and energy routes.
The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden called last week for the EU to reopen discussion on using Russia’s frozen assets, an idea some ministers reiterated on Wednesday.
But it remained unclear whether Europe would once again seriously consider using the frozen assets.
EU countries immobilised some €210 billion of Russian central bank assets after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Around €185 billion of this is held in Brussels-based central securities depository Euroclear.
The European Commission proposed last year to use Russian cash for a loan to Ukraine, but Belgium rejected the plan, saying it did not provide sufficient guarantees that it would not be left alone to deal with potential lawsuits and demands of damages from Russia.
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Wicklow, Lili Bayer in Brussels, Charlotte Van Campenhout in Amsterdam, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Alexander Ratz in Berlin and Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; Writing by Lili Bayer; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
