Russia and Ukraine called on Sunday to step up diplomatic efforts while accusing each other of being responsible for the outbreak of violence in the east, where fighting with separatists has Westerners fearing an intervention from Moscow.
After separate telephone exchanges with President Emmanuel Macron, his Russian counterparts Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky both said they were ready to continue the talks.
While the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken repeated on Sunday that Russia was “on the verge” of invading Ukraine, the French president attempted “the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine”, after a meeting in the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin on February 7.
At the end of this telephone conversation, Mr. Putin said he wanted to “intensify” diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev has been fighting since 2014 pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow.
Westerners fear that the outbreak of fighting for two days on the front line could serve as a pretext for Russia, which has massed 150,000 troops on the Ukrainian borders, to launch an attack against its pro-Western neighbor.
Vladimir Putin on Sunday attributed this outbreak of violence to the account of “Ukrainian” provocations “, while the separatists ordered the evacuation of civilians and the mobilization of men in a condition to fight. »
Russian troops in Belarus
Also speaking to Emmanuel Macron on the telephone, Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the “provocative firing” of the rebels sponsored by Moscow and called for the resumption of negotiations with Russia under the aegis of the OSCE and the establishment of a ” immediate ceasefire”.
According to the Élysée, the importance of a ceasefire was also underlined during the Putin-Macron interview.
Mr. Macron must now meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US President Joe Biden “in the next few hours”. The heads of Russian and French diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov and Jean-Yves Le Drian, will meet on Monday, according to Moscow.
An extraordinary meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) devoted to Ukraine is also due to take place on Monday.
Earlier Sunday, Belarus, an ally of Moscow, had indicated that the approximately 30,000 Russian soldiers present on its territory, according to the count of the United States, and who were to leave this Sunday, will remain for other military exercises.
This “inspection of forces” continues, according to Minsk, due to the resumption of fighting in eastern Ukraine, which redoubled in intensity on Sunday in a conflict which has already claimed more than 14,000 lives since 2014.
Despite this announcement, the Elysée repeated that Mr. Putin had repeated to Mr. Macron “his intention to withdraw his troops” from Belarus “at the end of the current exercises”.
On the front line in eastern Ukraine, AFP journalists heard a series of explosions.
For Oleksiï Kovalenko, a 33-year-old plumber interviewed in a shelter in Zoloté, “it’s pulling hard at the moment”.
“This shelter is not fitted out, but it saved lives in 2014. There is no water and people bring it with them”, he testifies. “A lot of people leave, but some stay because they have nowhere to go.”
“Living normally”
Natalia Zibrova, 48, says she “wants to live normally” and not have to worry “if the children will have time to flee from the bombs”. Resigned, she stays at home in her slippers and dressing gown, while the shots ring out.
Moscow defends itself from any project of invading Ukraine but demands guarantees for its security, including the promise that the country will never integrate NATO and the end of the reinforcement of Alliance forces on its borders, as much demands that Westerners have rejected.
Vladimir Putin insisted on this point again on Sunday with Emmanuel Macron, calling on Washington and NATO to “take seriously” Russian requests.
The crisis around Ukraine since the end of 2021 has caused the worst escalation of tensions that Europe has seen since the Cold War, with several Western countries hammering that the Russian invasion could occur at any time.
Following in the footsteps of the United States and NATO, which said they feared a “large-scale attack”, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson assured Sunday that Russia was preparing “what could be the biggest war in Europe since 1945”.
Joe Biden summoned his National Security Council for a crisis meeting on Sunday evening. A sign that the diplomatic channel remains open, MM. Blinken and Lavrov are due to meet on February 24.