EU show of unity in Kyiv masks strains in Ukraine support

Kallas says pressure must fall on aggressor, not victim

EU foreign ministers gathered in Kyiv on Tuesday to project unity with Ukraine on the fourth anniversary of the Bucha massacre, even as divisions within the bloc continue to delay key military and financial support.

Ministers from 15 EU countries travelled to the Ukrainian capital as Brussels reiterated that pressure to end the war “must fall on the aggressor, not the victim,” as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

Earlier on Tuesday, 26 countries issued a statement commemorating the victims of the massacre. Hungary was the only country not to sign the statement. The country is still holding up a €90 billion loan for Ukraine that EU leaders agreed to in December.

Budapest is vetoing the disbursement of the loan over Ukraine’s failure to repair an oil pipeline delivering oil to Hungary from Russia but running through Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged the EU to move forward, saying the loan “should be unfrozen” and was essential not as “charity” but for European security.

Brussels in two minds about Ukraine’s pipeline hold-up

While EU countries have publicly sided with Ukraine in the feud, EU officials have been increasingly vocal about Kyiv’s strategy.

Hungary, as well as Slovakia, have held up the bloc’s 20th sanctions package on Russia since February. Earlier on Tuesday, Kallas said she did not “have good news to deliver” but added she hoped the bloc could align before the next meeting of EU leaders in Cyprus in late April.

Kallas also sought to reassure Kyiv that attention would not shift away despite escalating tensions in the Middle East, saying the EU would not allow other conflicts to divert support for Ukraine. “The wars in Iran and Ukraine are very much interlinked,” she said, pointing to Iranian-designed Shahed drones used across Ukraine and rising oil prices benefitting Moscow.

At the same time, Ukraine needs “to do its own work,” Kallas said. The country should speed up reforms to access up to €4 billion in EU funds, as the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos wrote in a letter on Tuesday to the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament s.

In Kyiv, Kallas said that she hoped to see Ukraine join the bloc ‘soon’ – but declined to put an exact date on the country’s enlargement.