This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 4 October 2017.
While defending the EU’s interests and values, we should continue to retain bridges with the Russian people.
I arrived in Moscow as the EU’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation exactly four years ago. At the time, relations with Russia were strained but still functioning. Our efforts to engage Moscow had not yielded much but still allowed open channels of communication. But only a few months later, our relations with Russia plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in eastern Ukraine.