If EU does not support Ukraine now, future generations will pay for it - Borrell

The European Union has provided Ukraine with significant financial, economic, humanitarian and military aid, which is approaching a EUR 100 billion mark, and these EU costs are not excessive, since the next generations of Europeans might pay for insufficient support for Ukraine now.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said this on Wednesday, April 9, during a plenary meeting of the European Parliament in Brussels, Ukrinform reports.

"The European Union institutions and its Member States have already provided Ukraine with quite a big figure of EUR 96 billion of support. We are reaching the EUR 100 billion of support to Ukraine. And, inside this figure, EUR 31 billion is military support. And additionally to that, there is the macro-financial, humanitarian and other kinds of support. Some may say: 'Oh, it is very expensive to support Ukraine.' Not to support Ukraine and let Ukraine fall in front of the Russian aggression will be much more expensive for us, and for the generations to come because Russia will become a bigger threat to our security and freedom," Borrell said.

He noted that the EU has to support Ukraine for as long as it takes and put into action all its capacities – financial and military.

"We are supporting them and offering an unwavering support to our neighbor Ukraine. Not just because it is our neighbor, because it is our partner. One of our most partners and now a candidate to become a member of the European Union. And its independence, its sovereignty, its territorial integrity are also part of our capacity to continue living in freedom," Borrell said.

Commenting on so-called "presidential elections" held in Russia on March 15-17, he noted that they were based on repressive laws, persecution of political opposition leaders, civil society representatives and journalists - including those opposing Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. These elections met no democratic standards and were illegally held in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

"On behalf of the European Union, I want to reiterate here that I strongly condemn the illegitimate elections that Russia has organized in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. As the European Union High Representative for Foreign [Affairs] and Security Policy, I have never shied away from bringing our message to Putin's regime […] to firmly condemn the attempted illegal annexations of Ukrainian territories and now Russia's full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. The European Union has demonstrated and will keep demonstrating that any continued internal repression and external aggression by Putin’s regime do have negative consequences," Borrell said.