Emmanuel Macron will meet Vladimir Putin on Monday in Moscow then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday in Kiev, the Elysée announced on Friday.
Emmanuel Macron will meet Vladimir Putin on Monday in Moscow then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday in Kiev, the Elysee Palace announced on Friday, a new diplomatic effort by the French president to achieve a de-escalation in the Ukrainian crisis. The head of state has multiplied telephone conversations in recent days with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, as well as with American President Joe Biden, in order to play mediators in this crisis.
These two interviews will take place face-to-face, said the Elysée, but “in coordination with European partners”. Emmanuel Macron and his advisers have also spoken with several of their European counterparts on the telephone in recent days, recalls the French presidency. The tension remains high in recent hours, Washington having assured Thursday to have evidence – without having presented it – that Moscow was preparing a video of a fake Ukrainian attack, a pretext to invade Ukraine.
“A constructive dialogue”
However, Kiev is more measured, the Minister of Defense, Oleksiï Reznikov, judging “low” Thursday the risk of a “significant escalation” of the conflict. Thursday, Emmanuel Macron spoke in turn with Vladimir Poutine then Volodymyr Zelensky. MM. Putin and Macron notably discussed the “security guarantees” demanded by Moscow, during their third telephone conversation of the week on this subject, the Kremlin said, referring to “a constructive dialogue”. While the EU seemed to count very little during the first Russian-American discussions on Ukraine, the French president has been trying for weeks to put Europe back into the game, which he has been advocating for years and not without difficulty. ‘strategic autonomy’.
The last meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine dates back to the summer of 2019, when the French president invited him to Fort de Brégançon, in the south of France. The French president was to go see him in Moscow in the spring of 2020 but his visit had been postponed due to the health crisis.
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