Europe broke these relations by simply destroying all the mechanisms that had been created for many years, and Russia was left with few partners - only individual European countries that want to be guided by their national interests. There is no relationship with the European Union as an organisation. The entire infrastructure of these relations was destroyed by the unilateral decisions of Brussels.
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative attempting to put the responsibility for the state of EU-Russian relations on Brussels, alleging that the EU is destroying them and ignoring the reasons behind the sanctions.
The EU has imposed restrictive measures, including sectoral sanctions, as a result of the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's destabilising actions in eastern Ukraine. Formats such as regular high-level dialogues remain suspended in the absence of the full implementation of the Minsk agreements by Russia. These events have seriously affected bilateral relations. As a result, some of the policy dialogues and mechanisms of cooperation are temporarily frozen, and sanctions directed at promoting a change in Russia's actions in Ukraine have been adopted.
The EU has strongly condemned the assassination attempt of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny and sanctioned 6 individuals and 1 entity involved in the assassination attempt using chemical weapons. There is unequivocal evidence that Navalny was poisoned using a Novichok-type nerve agent. To obfuscate responsibility for the poisoning, the pro-Kremlin media has drawn numerous parallels between the Navalny and Skripal poisonings.
However, Russia remains a natural partner for the EU and a strategic player combating the regional and global challenges. The EU’s approach to Russia is guided by five principles agreed in 2016 and reaffirmed, most recently, by EU Foreign Ministers in October 2020. Read more about the EU-Russia relations here.