The current French president knows that he plays big on the banks of the Moskva. Because many are those who doubt France’s ability to convince Putin to send his troops back to the barracks and loosen the noose around his Ukrainian neighbor. French diplomacy often errs less because of a lack of ambition than because of a lack of persuasive power. And the risk that this trip will not change much in the Ukrainian chessboard is not small.
However, it is nothing like a kamikaze operation. Because Macron has taken care to mark out the ground by aligning himself upstream with those who count in the Western camp: Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, the head of NATO, the President of the European Council, the German Chancellor, without forgetting the countries of the “front line”: the Balts and the Eastern Europeans. And of course the Ukrainians. Knowing Putin well, the Frenchman also benefits from the weight given to him by the French presidency of the European Union.
Macron’s trip to Moscow and Kiev is not a one-off, and so much the better. Because Europeans can no longer afford to be absent.
And he can pride himself on being, with Olaf Scholz, the depositary of the “Minsk agreements” on Ukraine. Signed in February 2015 in “Normandy format” (Moscow, Kiev, Paris and Berlin), this treaty did not silence the guns in the Donbass, far from it. But it at least froze the conflict and represents, to date, the only serious attempt to settle the Ukrainian problem. Some in Berlin wonder “where is Olaf Scholz” as the Chancellor is discreet. But Scholz was in the White House when Macron entered the Kremlin. And next week, he will in turn be at Putin.