Watch: EU not 'missing in action' over Ukraine, Borrell tells MEPs
The EU's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has rejected claims that the bloc has been "missing in action" over the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Brussels was largely sidelined at the beginning of the crisis as senior officials from Washington and Moscow convened in Geneva for talks.
Borrell, speaking at a European Parliament debate on the Ukraine crisis, said criticism the EU had gone missing were unfounded.
He told MEPs that EU countries had shown "remarkable unity" and hailed the diplomatic efforts of France and Germany, whose leaders, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, both travelled to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Borrell appeared to imply that recent breakthroughs such as Tuesday's announcements by Russia that it has begun to withdraw some troops from the Ukrainian border and in Crimea — which Western countries say they have yet to see proof of — could not have happened without the EU.
"Russia deliberately tried to ignore the existence of the EU by sending letters only to the United States and NATO in December considering that we are completely irrelevant and have nothing to say about security issues in Europe. For Moscow, the security in Europe is being defined in Washington," he said.
"Later, when they noticed that despite this dismissive attitude, nothing was going on, Mr Lavrov (Russia's foreign minister) finally decided to send a letter to the 27 member states that he had ignored until now. Why such a U-turn on Russia position?" he continued. "Because they realised that the European front was not cracked and the Atlantic solidarity was very strong."
The US says Russia has deployed up to 150,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and in Belarus, where Moscow is carrying out joint military exercises
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