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.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
RSS