Kalinak: Brussels is Starting to Realise There's No Military Solution to Ukraine

Bratislava/Brussels, August 30 (TASR-correspondent) - Even the European Commission is beginning to realise that there is no military solution to the war in Ukraine, Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer-SD) declared after an informal meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday. TASR learnt the news from its special correspondent in Brussels. Kalinak voiced his disappointment at the fact that the meeting didn't take place in Budapest, as originally planned under the auspices of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU, and added that he finds such "punishment" from Brussels "childish" and unfair. He also wondered how the EU will respond to the latest findings regarding the attack on Nord Stream 2. "We should have the courage to address the information about Nord Stream. It's a European infrastructure, after all. I'm not aware of anyone giving a green light to tolerate attacks on the European energy infrastructure. How will we resolve this? Or are we postponing it momentarily only because we're in a dispute with Russia, which has attacked Ukraine? It's strange and it opens the way for future precedents that are plainly unacceptable," said Kalinak. The Defence Minister finds it astounding that the EU has looked the other way and completely failed to respond to the information from Germany about a potential Ukrainian clue with respect to the pipeline explosion. Kalinak added that at the meeting problems and behaviour of the Ukrainian side had been discussed openly, particularly the blocking of oil supplies, which must be prevented. "If we're supposed to help them with our resources, their measures cannot impact our economic interests," he explained. At the beginning of the meeting, head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell intimated an option to bolster the number of Ukrainian soldiers who receive military training in the EU, which currently stands at 60,000. Kalinak believes such a plan has no potential of success and underlined that Slovakia will focus exclusively on the humanitarian part of the training - de-mining and the training of medical personnel. mf/mcs