Closing summary
… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is “in a weaker position than he has been ever before,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas suggested, after talks among the bloc’s foreign ministers over the latest suggestions that the Russian war against Ukraine could be nearing an end (16:45).
Kallas said Ukraine is now “in a much better position than a year ago,” as “the dynamics of the war are changing” (16:30).
Separately, she urged for all accession negotiation clusters between the EU and Ukraine to be opened by summer (16:32), which she later specified as August (16:40).
In other news,
Several European leaders dismissed the idea that the Kremlin-friendly former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder could serve as a European mediator in peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine (10:11, 10:37, 11:24, 14:17).
EU foreign ministers adopted new sanctions against individuals and entities in Russia or occupied Ukrainian territories over “systematic unlawful deportation of Ukrainian childrem” (13:48), and additional sanctions on Israeli settlers (15:44).
Polish prosecutors are investigating how a former justice minister wanted on multiple criminal charges managed to flee to the US from Hungary, where the former prime minister Viktor Orbán had granted him political asylum (12:10, 17:32).
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Polish ex-minister flees Hungary to the US after PM Magyar says country won’t protect people wanted elsewhere
Ashifa Kassam in Budapest, Jakub Krupa and agencies
Polish prosecutors are investigating how a former justice minister wanted on multiple criminal charges managed to flee to the US from Hungary, where the former prime minister Viktor Orbán had granted him political asylum.
On Saturday, as the inauguration of Péter Magyar as Hungary’s new prime minister marked the end of Orbán’s 16 years in power, reports emerged that Poland’s Zbigniew Ziobro had left the central European country and was in the US.
Ziobro, who last year was stripped of his Polish and diplomatic passports, confirmed the reports on Sunday. “I am in the United States,” Ziobro told the rightwing Polish broadcaster Republika, saying he had arrived in the “strongest democracy in the world” a day earlier.
Last month Magyar said that Hungary would no longer harbour Ziobro – a key figure in the government led by the nationalist conservative Law and Justice party that ran Poland between 2015 and 2023 – leading many to assume that Poland would be able to put him on trial.
The former minister faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of allegations of abuse of power. Prosecutors have accused him of creating and leading a criminal group that diverted funds from victims of violence to use for his own interests, including to buy Israeli Pegasus spyware to allegedly monitor political opponents.
Ziobro has denied the charges, describing them as fabricated and accusing the centrist Polish government, led by Donald Tusk, of carrying out a “personal vendetta” against him.
On Monday, Polish prosecutors said they were looking into how Ziobro had managed to travel to the US despite having his Polish and diplomatic passports revoked.
