Landsbergis: EU ministers “stuck in cold mud' in Ukraine discussions

That’s according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"There is not a single more important issue than Russia's war against Ukraine. Unfortunately, with many things that we have to discuss it feels as if we're a little bit stuck in the cold mud," Landsbergis said ahead of the meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Monday.

"Hopefully, we're not frozen in that mud when it comes to sanctions, when it comes to macro-financial assistance to Ukraine and weapon deliveries," the minister said. "My real hope is that we're not waiting for something additionally horrible to happen in Ukraine for us to get unstuck," he added.

The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has said that the Council is expected to discuss the bloc's "further macro-financial and military assistance to Ukraine" as well as "Russia's accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression," according to Delfi.

Lithuania could accommodate up to 30,000 more Ukrainian refugees Lithuania is sticking to its position that more sanctions must be imposed and that more assistance, including military aid, especially heavy weapons, must be provided to Ukraine, according to Landsbergis.

"It feels as if we're stuck on basically every conversation that we're having on Ukraine," he said.

The minister also said that "from the very beginning Lithuania was not supportive of derogations, even though some of the derogations could have made our situation possibly easier".

"We thought that sanctions are there for a reason; they're not there to be avoided or eased," he said. "So yes, we're participating in the discussion, we're trying to maintain unanimity but definitely we're not in favor of derogations."

Officials say that decisions on financial support for Ukraine have recently been blocked by Budapest which is seeking to prevent the freezing of EU funds for Hungary over rule of law and corruption concerns.

On the margins of the Council, a meeting of foreign ministers of the EU Eastern Partnership countries is scheduled to take place.

Before the meeting, EU High Representative Josep Borrell noted that among European ministers there are "different approaches" to the European Commission's proposals for the introduction of the 9th package of Russia sanctions in connection with the war of aggression being waged against Ukraine.