The role and participation of the European Union in the upcoming possible negotiations on Ukraine are excluded, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has said.

“Today the EU countries and Europeans are demanding for some reason a place at the negotiating table on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, this is simply astounding, since for many years they have been at the table,” Grushko said.

According to him, “the whole point of European policy was not to let the conflict end with the use of political and diplomatic means, but to continue it until a complete victory over Russia,” RIA Novosti reports.

“This excludes any role of the European Union and European countries in the upcoming negotiations, we hope they will be, on the settlement of the conflict in and around Ukraine,” Grushko added.

He noted that Russia has a negative attitude to the idea of deploying European peacekeepers in Ukraine. “And we have talked about this many times. Under whatever guise they are there, this is a step towards escalation, not de-escalation,” Grushko said.

He also said that if European countries could help settle the Ukrainian conflict, they should stop providing military support to Kiev.