The French president is the main Western leader to visit Moscow since the current crisis with Ukraine began
Russia and France have sat far apart at the table today and, without touching or advancing solutions, congratulated each other on good mutual intentions while the Kremlin and the White House guard weapons for a second assault. French President Emmanuel Macron is the main Western leader to visit Moscow since Russia began massing troops on the Ukrainian border. Macron told the Russian president that he was looking for a “useful” response “that, of course, allows us to avoid war and build trust, stability and visibility.”
Putin, for his part, said Russia and France shared “a common concern about what is happening in the field of security in Europe.” “I see how many efforts the Government of France and the President personally are applying to resolve the crisis related to providing equitable security in Europe from a serious historical perspective,” the Russian leader said.
Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders. He denies that he is preparing an invasion, but says he is ready to take unspecified “military-technical measures” if his demands are not met, including a NATO promise never to admit Ukraine and withdraw troops from Eastern Europe.
In this crisis, derived in part from the one that was falsely closed with the peace agreements on Ukraine in 2015, Macron is trying to place Europe in a game from which Vladimir Putin had excluded it. But the French leader was received coldly by Putin at the start of the Kremlin talks: a low-key reception at the airport before being greeted by Putin from the back of the room and then seated at a mile-long table. Some extreme anti-Covid measures that are eloquent when you consider that Putin never wears a mask.
Macron said his goal is to avoid war and build trust. Also that he hopes to “start a de-escalation”. The French president added that he wanted to “start building a collectively useful response for Russia and for the rest of Europe.” Putin, for his part, said that Russia and France had “common concerns about security in Europe” and welcomed the “efforts” made by the French authorities.
THE EUROPEAN MEDIATOR
Macron is trying to tap into his own relationship with Putin, a bond he has been unsuccessfully trying to develop for four years but one that allows him to at least be an interlocutor. Try to keep the so-called ‘Normandy format’ alive, which cites France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to seek solutions to the Donbas conflict but does not include the United States.
The problem is that in Kiev there is less and less will to comply with the Minsk agreements, which establish free elections in the occupied zones but disconnect them from their umbilical cord with Russia. And in the current climate of mistrust, Russia seems unwilling to let go of the lever of pressure it exerts through those territories.
Macron is playing mediator in this crisis by taking a less alarmist approach than the United States. Tomorrow, in this message, he will coincide with the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, who has been calling for a less apocalyptic tone for days, an approach that does not warn every day of the imminent Russian invasion that has yet to take place.
But that does not mean that the Ukrainians are going to give in to anything that Macron proposes tomorrow. In fact, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dimitro Kuleba, has insisted on his red lines, which are the sovereignty of the country or the refusal to sit down and talk directly with the pro-Russian separatists who occupy various territories in the East. And of course Ukraine does not intend to give up joining NATO.
Kiev does not have plenty of allies. Germany announced on Monday that it would deploy 350 soldiers to Lithuania to reinforce a NATO battle group there in the face of a possible threat from Russia. But for now Berlin refuses to give arms to Kiev, which is not resigned either. “Germany has repeatedly and publicly explained this decision. We consider these explanations about Ukraine unfair. We believe that there is a wider space for Germany to act“said the Ukrainian foreign minister.
Although the Ukrainians these days display a greater calm than that of their allies, disturbing signs emerge every day. A separatist leader said today that a full-scale war could break out there at any moment. Around the same time, another influential pro-Russian commander in eastern Ukraine urged Moscow to send 30,000 troops.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism