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UKRAINE

Putin tells France’s Macron Russia will reach aims through ‘negotiation or war’: Elysee

Russian President Vladimir Putin told French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Sunday that Moscow planned to achieve its aims in Ukraine either through diplomacy or military means, the Elysee said.

Published: 6 March 2022 17:17 CET
French president Emmanuel Macron takes part in a videoconference in the green Presidential meeting room at the Elysee Palace
Macron's previous call with Putin left him feeling the worst was still to come. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP)

Russia would reach its objectives in Ukraine “either through negotiation or through war”, Putin told Macron according to a French presidential official, adding the Russian president also pledged “it was not his intention” to attack Ukrainian nuclear sites.

Macron found Putin “very determined to achieve his objectives”, including on “what the Russian president calls the ‘de-Nazification’ and the ‘neutralisation’ of Ukraine”, added the official, who asked not to be named.

Putin also demanded recognition of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea — annexed by Russia in 2014 — as part of Russian territory as well as recognition as independent of two Ukrainian eastern breakaway regions already recognised by Russia.

These demands are “unacceptable for the Ukrainians”, said the official.

Putin also denied that the Russian army is targeting civilians after Macron urged him not to endanger civilians, in line with international law.

The French president replied to him that “the army attacking is the Russian army” and said he had “no reason to believe that the Ukrainian army is putting civilians in danger”, the official said.

Macron had last week already expressed alarm over nuclear security risks in Ukraine after Europe’s largest atomic power plant Zaporizhzhia was attacked and seized by invading Russian forces.

“President Putin has said that it was not his intention to carry out attacks on these power stations,” said the official, adding that the Russian president said he was prepared to meet UN atomic agency standards for nuclear plant protection.

The new telephone talks, which a presidential official said lasted 1 hour 45 minutes and was at Macron’s request, was the fourth time they had spoken since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.

It came after a tense call on March 3rd which the Elysee said had left Macron feeling “the worst is to come” in Ukraine with Putin intent on seizing “the whole” of the country.

READ ALSO: Macron tells French ‘I will protect you’ from effects of war in Ukraine

According to the Kremlin, Putin in the telephone call blamed Kyiv for failed civilian evacuations from the key Ukrainian port city of Mariupol which is surrounded by Russian troops.

Putin “drew attention to the fact that Kyiv still does not fulfil agreements reached on this acute humanitarian issue”, according to a statement from the Kremlin, after two agreements to evacuate Mariupol fell though following allegations of ceasefire breaches.

Also on Sunday, a US State Department spokesman said Macron would meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, as world leaders scramble to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Macron was expected to host Blinken on Tuesday around 6pm. (1700 GMT), the spokesman said.

This came on the 11th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and as Russian forces pressed a siege of the key southern port of Mariupol and destroyed an airport in the west of the country.

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POLITICS

Macron warns ‘mortal’ Europe needs credible defence

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that Europe faced an existential threat from Russian aggression, calling on the continent to adopt a "credible" defence strategy less dependent on the United States.

Published: 25 April 2024 13:41 CEST
Macron warns 'mortal' Europe needs credible defence

He described Russia’s behaviour after its invasion of Ukraine as “uninhibited” and said it was no longer clear where Moscow’s “limits” lay.

Macron also sounded the alarm on what he described as disrespect of global trade rules by both Russia and China, calling on the European Union to revise its trade policy.

“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” he said.

“It can die and this depends only on our choices,” Macron said, warning that Europe was “not armed against the risks we face” in a world where the “rules of the game have changed”.

“Over the next decade… the risk is immense of (Europe) being weakened or even relegated,” he added, also pointing to the risk of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Macron returned to the same themes of a speech he gave in September 2017 months after taking office at the same location – the Sorbonne University in Paris – but in a context that seven years on has been turned upside down by Brexit, Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Macron champions the concept of European strategic autonomy in economy and defence, arguing that Europe needs to face crises like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine without relying on the US.

He urged Europe to be more a master of its own destiny, saying in the past it was over-dependent on Russia for energy and Washington for security.

He said the indispensable “sine qua non” for European security was “that Russia does not win the war of aggression in Ukraine”.

“We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defence for ourselves,” Macron said, adding Europe could not be “a vassal” of the United States.

He said he would ask European partners for proposals in the next months and added that Europe also needed its own capacity in cyberdefence and cybersecurity.

Macron said preference should be given to European suppliers in the purchase of military equipment and backed the idea of a European loan to finance this effort.

Macron also called for a “revision” of EU trade policy to defend European interests, accusing both China and the United States of no longer respecting the rules of global commerce.

“It cannot work if we are the only ones in the world to respect the rules of trade — as they were written up 15 years ago — if the Chinese and the Americans no longer respect them by subsidising critical sectors.”

Macron is, after Brexit and the departure from power of German chancellor Angela Merkel, often seen by commentators as Europe’s number one leader.

But his party is facing embarrassment in June’s European elections, ranking well behind the far-right in opinion polls and even risking coming third behind the Socialists.

The head of the governing party’s list for the elections, the little-known Valerie Hayer, is failing to make an impact, especially in the face of the high-profile 28-year-old Jordan Bardella leading the far right and Raphael Glucksmann emerging as a new star on the left.

Macron made no reference to the elections in his speech, even though analysts say he is clearly seeking to wade into the campaign, with his speech reading as a manifesto for the continent’s future.

“The risk is that Europe will experience a decline and we are already starting to see this despite all our efforts,” he warned.

“We are still too slow and not ambitious enough,” he added, urging a “powerful Europe”, which “is respected”, “ensures its security” and regains “its strategic autonomy”.

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