PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Moscow on Monday with the intention of negotiating a reduction in the Russian military presence on the Ukrainian border and consolidating the progress made during the talks in the “Normandy format”, an official said on Friday. source at the Elysée.
The Head of State, President-in-Office of the European Union, will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of diplomatic efforts to enable de-escalation in the region. He is expected in Kiev on Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.
Russia has massed 115,000 troops near Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, but denies any intention to invade the territory of its neighbor, from which it annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
It is demanding guarantees on its security from the West, including a halt to any expansion of NATO towards the East, a demand rejected by the United States and the Atlantic Alliance.
“We want the demonstration that there is no military intention,” said a source at the Elysée on Friday.
Emmanuel Macron intends to see what can be negotiated “so that the Russian military system is lightened and is a less threatening subject”, it was explained.
The idea is also to consolidate the progress made during recent discussions in the “Normandy format” on the status of the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine.
Emmanuel Macron will coordinate before his trip with France’s European and Western partners, in particular British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
There is no question of exerting any pressure on Ukraine, it is in Moscow that the problem lies, it is underlined in Paris.
(Report John Irish, French version Sophie Louet, edited by Tangi Salaün)
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