De-escalation near Ukraine?
Macron gives optimistic talks with Putin
2/8/2022 5:32 p.m
Russian President Putin has assured him that the smoldering Ukraine conflict “will neither deteriorate nor escalate,” says French President Macron. According to a Kremlin spokesman, however, there is still no talk of a military withdrawal.
During his diplomatic offensive to defuse the Ukraine conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said he received assurances from Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin that he would refrain from further escalation. Putin has promised him that “there will be no deterioration or escalation,” Macron said. Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also campaigned for a diplomatic solution during a visit to Ukraine.
Macron said after his onward journey to Kiev, where he was received by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he offered Putin “concrete security guarantees” during the five-hour meeting in the Kremlin on Monday. During the consultations with Putin, he was concerned with “preventing an escalation and opening up new perspectives,” said the French President. “This goal has been achieved for me.”
After his meeting with Zelenskyy, Macron reiterated that he believes a diplomatic way out of the Ukraine conflict is possible. “We now have the opportunity to advance these negotiations (between Moscow and Kiev),” said the French President. There are “concrete, practical solutions” to reduce tensions between the West and Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to the Reuters news agency that de-escalation in the Ukraine conflict is also necessary from Moscow’s point of view and that the talks could provide the basis for this. However, he denied statements by a French government official that Putin had assured Macron that there were no more military maneuvers on the border with Ukraine. France and Russia have not yet reached a final agreement amid tensions in Ukraine, Peskov said.
Hope for Normandy format grows
According to Western sources, Moscow has massed more than 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine. This fuels fears that Russia could be preparing an attack on the neighboring country. Russia denies this and at the same time claims that it feels threatened by NATO. Moscow is demanding extensive security guarantees from the military alliance and the USA, but so far without success.
After his talks with Macron, Zelenskyy expressed hope for an early summit on the Ukraine conflict with Russia, France and Germany. “We assume that very soon we will be able to hold talks between the leaders of the Normandy format,” said Zelenskyy. The Normandy format was created in 2014 to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The mediation by Berlin and Paris led to the Minsk Agreement of 2015. However, Kiev and Moscow regularly accuse each other of violating the agreement.
Macron traveled to Moscow on his own initiative, but after extensive consultation with numerous EU countries and the USA. After his visit to Kiev, Macron wanted to make a stopover in Berlin in the evening to exchange views on the Ukraine conflict with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Poland’s President Andrzej Duda.
Baerbock pushes for a solution to the conflict
Meanwhile, Federal Foreign Minister Baerbock was in eastern Ukraine to get an idea of the situation in the contested area. “I’m here to get an idea of what it means that we’re still at war in the middle of Europe,” Baerbock said at the so-called contact line, which divided areas under Ukrainian control from the pro-Russian separatists. separates regions. It is urgently necessary “that we finally come to a solution to this conflict”.
Baerbock called for the implementation of the Minsk Agreement. She complained about violations of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and called for compliance with the agreement. “We will not be able to solve this aggression on the Russian side militarily. That’s why I’m doing everything to ensure that we make step-by-step progress at the negotiating table,” said the Federal Foreign Minister.
At the same time, the international community must continue to make it clear that any further military aggression by Russia would have “massive consequences” for Moscow. The SPD foreign policy expert Michael Roth expressed skepticism that Putin would really refrain from an escalation. He would be happy about that, but “at the moment the pictures on the Ukrainian border look completely different,” said the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag on the “Welt” television channel.