(Kyiv) “We have turned the page”: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has drawn a line under the controversy that his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron had sparked by calling for “not to humiliate” Russia.
Posted at 7:54 a.m.
“The relationship is transparent and frank with President Macron,” he said Thursday in the gardens of the Ukrainian presidency alongside the French president, German chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian prime minister Mario Draghi and Romanian president Klaus. Iohannis.
The Ukrainian president preferred to welcome the fact that the four European leaders say they are ready to “immediately” grant Ukraine EU candidate status.
“This is a historic result,” he said, hoping that the 23 other EU member states will rally behind this position at the European summit on June 23 and 24.
The two leaders, who know each other well – Emmanuel Macron had been one of the first to receive the former actor then presidential candidate – displayed their complicity during the visit in front of the photographers, between hugs and solid handshakes.
Paris also relativizes the tensions that have arisen. “They talk to each other on the phone without making an appointment”, underlines a French diplomatic source, for whom the declarations of the head of state have never been “a problem in the conversation”.
Emmanuel Macron has caused a lot of ink to flow by calling not to give in to the “temptation” of “humiliation” towards Russia.
Caesar cannons
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba then replied that such remarks could only “humiliate France”.
The French president explained himself at length from Kyiv, stressing that his remarks were aimed at the moment when the war would be over and when a new security architecture in Europe would have to be negotiated.
“Today, Russia is waging war on Ukraine. How do you expect me to have to explain to a Ukrainian or a Ukrainian “we must not humiliate Russia, Russia, the Russian people, not its leaders”? “, he launched.
“Today, we must win this war. France is clearly in support of Ukraine so that it wins, ”insisted Emmanuel Macron.
On this occasion, he announced the dispatch to Ukraine of six additional Caesar guns, the flagship of French artillery, beyond the twelve already deployed against the Russians.
“But at the end of this war (…), we must not make the mistakes that others have made in the past”, he insisted in reference to the spirit of revenge against defeated Germany. in 1918.
It will then be necessary to build a “lasting peace” in Europe, in which Ukraine’s relationship with NATO, its potential neutrality, will be put on the table, as will war damages or the condemnation of Russian war crimes, we underline a French diplomatic source.
In May, the Ukrainian president also criticized his French counterpart for wanting to provide an “exit door” for Vladimir Putin, by offering him “concessions”.
To talk with Putin or not
No territorial concession to Russia, no fait accompli obtained by military force: “This is never what we have done, neither to grant a few concessions, nor to negotiate a few concessions”, insisted the French president.
Volodymyr Zelensky also said he doubted the interest of speaking, as his French counterpart does, to Russian President Vladimir Putin, with a view to ending the war in Ukraine.
“I’m not sure there is a possibility that the President of the Russian Federation is ready to hear anything,” he said.
Very involved in the Ukrainian crisis, Mr. Macron is one of the rare leaders to exchange regularly with the master of the Kremlin – which arouses misunderstanding in Eastern Europe – and to make the link with President Zelensky .
“Today, we can clearly see that the evolution on the ground does not justify it”, admitted the French president, while the Ukrainians suffered heavy losses in the face of the assaults by Russian forces in the Donbass mining basin.
“I do not rule out doing so” on urgent matters such as food security, he noted, referring to Ukrainian cereals stuck by a Russian blockade in the port of Odessa, at the risk of cause shortages in Africa or the Middle East.