French President Emmanuel Macron was to travel to Kiev yesterday after offering Russia “concrete security guarantees” in an effort to dissuade Moscow from invading Ukraine, with Russia’s leader vowing to find compromise in response.
Macron’s visit comes during a week of intense Western diplomacy amid a major Russian military buildup on its southwestern frontier that has raised fears it could soon march into Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Macron that Moscow would “do everything to find compromises that suit everyone,” raising the prospect of a path to de-escalating the situation.
Photo: AFP
Putin said several proposals put forward by Macron at talks on Monday could form a basis for moving forward on the situation over Ukraine.
“A number of his ideas, proposals ... are possible as a basis for further steps,” Putin said after more than five hours of talks in the Kremlin.
He did not provide any details, but said the two leaders would speak by telephone after Macron meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The French president said he had made proposals of “concrete security guarantees” to Putin.
“President Putin assured me of his readiness to engage in this sense, and his desire to maintain stability and the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Macron said.
“There is no security for the Europeans if there is no security for Russia,” he said.
The French president said that the proposals include an engagement from both sides not to take any new military action, the launching of a new strategic dialogue and efforts to revive the peace process in Kiev’s conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Putin said that Ukrainian authorities were to blame for the continued conflict in the country’s east, home to pro-Russian breakaway enclaves that have previously seen fierce fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces.
“Kiev still rejects every opportunity for a peaceful restoration of its territorial integrity,” Putin said.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden warned Putin that he would “end” the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if Moscow sends forces across the Ukrainian border as it did during the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
“If Russia invades — that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again — then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” Biden told a joint White House news conference with German Chancellor Olag Scholz on Monday.
“I promise you, we will bring an end to it,” Biden said.
Scholz was less direct and said only that Berlin was “united” with Washington, but declined to mention the pipeline by name.
Scholz himself is to travel to Moscow and Kiev next week for talks with Putin and Zelenskiy.
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