Shortly before his visit to Brussels to meet president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, European Council President Donald Tusk and other top EU officials President Poroshenko responded to Brexit results by making a comment on a Facebook in which he downplayed the growing influence of Eurosceptics and voiced his confidence in the European Union project. However, the true motive of Poroshenko’s appeal was summarized in the wrap up note which described Russia “as aggressor” and called on the extension of Western sanctions against Moscow.
In the meantime, Mr. Poroshenko’s visit to Brussels proved to be lacking substance as the European leaders were preoccupied with their own Brexit agenda and hardly found time to fit the meetings with Ukrainian leader into their busy schedule.
As it turned out, Brexit dealt a fresh blow to Ukraine’s troubled integration process with the EU which was seen as a brainchild of Mr. Poroshenko.
To discuss in more detail we were joined by Vladimir Sotnikov, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies and analysis “Russia-East-West” (studio guest), Sergei Utkin, Head of Department of Strategic Assessment, Center for Situation Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences (studio guest) and Alex Bratersky, senior political writer with Gazeta.RU media outlet, who covered Euromaidan protests and events in Crimea.
