The head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday accused Russia of “pretending to negotiate” a ceasefire in Ukraine while continuing to “make arms speak”.
The head of French diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday accused Russia of “pretending to negotiate” a ceasefire in Ukraine while continuing to “make arms speak”. As in Aleppo (Syria) or Grozny (Chechnya), the “Russian logic (..) is based on the usual triptych: indiscriminate bombardments, so-called humanitarian + corridors + designed to then accuse the adversary of not respecting them and talks with no other objective than to pretend to negotiate,” he said in an interview with the daily Le Parisien.
Russian-Ukrainian talks continued on Wednesday, with Moscow saying they include a neutral status for Ukraine. Ukraine, however, rejected the concept of Swedish or Austrian neutrality put forward by Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously said he was ready to renounce any membership of his country in NATO, a casus belli for Russia. “Russia has chosen to continue to make arms speak”, it “refuses for the moment” the ceasefire, affirms Jean-Yves Le Drian, pointing to the “maximalism of its demands”, its “willingness to a Ukrainian surrender” and “the escalation of the siege war”. “It is a dramatic process of long-term brutality,” he predicts, believing that Ukraine is engaging for its part “with responsibility and openness in the talks”.
For their part, the West is in a logic of “determined aggravation of sanctions until it appears to President Putin that the price to pay for the continuation of the conflict is so high that it is preferable to initiate a ceasefire and to engage in real negotiations”, underlines Jean-Yves Le Drian. If Russia were to use “chemical or bacteriological means” in Ukraine, this “would constitute an intolerable escalation and would lead in response to absolutely massive and radical economic sanctions, without taboos”, also warned the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.
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