The informal gathering of EU foreign ministers in the Ukrainian capital last Monday was a 100% staged show, a PR action. The US-masterminded show was meant to knock out the political fire gaining in relations between official Washington and Kiev over the Congress’ failure to embrace financial aid to Ukraine in the newly adopted government funding bill.

Hence, the meeting yielded no decisions on either assistance to Kiev or Ukraine's EU membership or other issues, which was even announced in advance, as the European Union has little left to offer Kiev. EU countries’ military arsenals have been exhausted, and their economies suffer from higher inflation and energy crisis, which aggravates the financial and economic ones. Funding Kiev is a waste of money, and all of its "partners and friends" have long come to realize this.  European countries have begun contemplating suspended assistance to Ukraine if they eventually follow US suit.

Assessing the Kiev meeting of EU Foreign Ministers chaired by chief diplomat Josep Borrel, one should assume that EU bureaucrats as they are today are mere submissive vassals of the United States. So, holding a meeting in Kiev is hardly Barrel’s personal creative input, since he only obeys orders by his Washington bosses.

Borrel was sent to Kiev accompanied by Europe’s leading diplomats with the express aim of drowning out Kiev's discontent over the United States’ failed aid package. One should not ignore the fact that this "historic meeting outside the EU borders," as Borrel put it, proved rather unexpected and even subitaneous. Tradition demands events of the kind be announced by the Western press at least a couple of weeks before. But this time it went public just a day earlier, implying that Washington’s order to Brussels and other EU capitals has come as a newsflash. Borrel, accompanied by his subordinate FMs, was prescribed to demonstrate that Ukraine did have friends in Europe, and the foreign aid flow was not going to stop.

This explains Borrel’s compulsive assurances that European support for Kiev is hardly dependent on the United States or counteroffensive results. Prior to the Kiev meeting, he said the EU would not only proceed with assisting Zelensky’s regime, but kick it into high gear. For greater effect, he even mentioned the threat to the European Union itself: "Not only does Ukraine risk its survival and future in the battle against the Russian invader, the EU also sees its own existence threatened." "Ukraine’s victory in the war it is waging to defend itself from the Russian invasion is the number one challenge of the European Union’s foreign and security policy," he added.

We are witnessing Brussels and Washington’s wishful thinking. The desired part of it is EU cohesion in supporting Ukraine along with further military and economic assistance, regardless of the source. And the reality is active “fermentation” going in in the minds of most European leaders (all the more so people). Judging by numerous lawmaker statements and media reports, many in the EU doubt the need for more financing to Ukraine — a project that will not work out anyway.

Notably, the Foreign Ministers of Hungary and Poland refused to engage in the gathering at all. Warsaw has turned from Kiev’s crony into nearly an enemy publicly doubting further aid, with Polish President Andrzej Duda comparing Ukraine to a drowning person who is dangerous to his rescuer. Budapest, in turn, has long spoken out against supporting Ukraine militarily. But there was another juicy slap to Borrel right on the eve of his "historic meeting" in Kiev — from Slovakia this time. Its last Saturday's parliamentary election brought victory to the Smer party led by ex-Prime Minister Robert Fico, who threatens to freeze Ukraine’s military aid.

The "historic meeting" in Kiev ended all but comically, as programmed by its very essence. The day before, Politico reported that France and Germany allegedly insisted on Ukraine’s alternative partial EU membership to provide a blueprint for its gradual integration. This was clearly planned as part of the entire Kiev show supposed to please the Ukrainians. But the final press conference saw Borrel cough up the following all of a sudden: "I don't know where this idea comes from. Who has talked about partial membership, half membership, 25% membership? Membership is membership, full stop." Mr. Chief Diplomat must have missed the message from its US curators. Struggling to get out of the mess, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba said on Monday that Ukraine would only be satisfied with full-fledged EU membership. What else could he say following Borrel’s blunder?

The "historic meeting"-guised show is still a show. Borrel has even failed to pronounce guaranteed European assistance to Ukraine, which could have compensated for the Congress failure. He said he expected to coordinate the five-billion-euro package for 2024 by year-end. An interesting thing is the way he is going to align with Hungary or Slovakia. But in this particular case, the main thing was to “utter a crow” and let the chips fall where they may.