Russia spars with EU and US at meeting on EU-UN cooperation

Russia has sparred with the European Union and the United States at a U.N. meeting  that highlighted the strained relations between Moscow, Brussels and Washington

UNITED NATIONS -- Russia sparred with the European Union and the United States at a U.N. meeting Thursday that highlighted the strained relations between Moscow, Brussels and Washington. Estonia, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, organized the meeting to focus on cooperation between the United Nations and the 27-nation European Union, inviting its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to speak about the relationship and challenges to peace and security. The council meeting came just ahead of this weekend’s summit of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations — which Russia was ousted from in 2014 — and next week’s first meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, which comes as relations between Washington and Moscow have sunk to a post-Cold War low. Borrell told the council in a virtual address that the COVID-19 pandemic “has underscored the fragility of our hyper-globalized and interdependent world.”