This was stated by a source among EU diplomats to the DPA news agency.

According to the interlocutor, the EU foreign ministers are trying to find a diplomatic way to de-escalate the situation, but "to put it mildly, you need to keep a stick".

The European Union also plans to impose sanctions for the first time on Wagner's private military campaign for its activities in Syria, Ukraine and Libya and possible human rights violations.

Read also: G7 countries promise Russia "serious costs" in the event of its invasion of Ukraine - Bloomberg

What is known

• According to NATO, Russia has amassed between 75,000 and 100,000 troops, which fears a repeat of 2014, when Russia occupied the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and launched an armed conflict in Donbas.
• On December 10, the Ukrainian Navy said that Russia had also blocked almost 70% of the Sea of ​​Azov around the occupied Crimea.
• At a meeting of G7 foreign ministers this weekend, it was decided that if Russia crossed the border into Ukraine, it would have huge political and economic consequences.
• French President Emmanuel Macron plans to hold a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days.
• After talks with her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian in Paris, German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock said that Russia would pay a high political and economic price for repeated violations of Ukraine's statehood.
• A video of the transfer of Russian military equipment to the occupied Crimea has appeared on the Internet.

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