Ukraine hailed “ real chances” of de-escalation, the Germany of “progress”. The concert of cautious optimism would be almost perfect after Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Russia if it weren’t for the lack of a voice that counts. That of the United States.
Since the French president met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday to try to defuse the crisis which risks degenerating into conflict on the Ukrainian border, Washington has been shining with his reserve. And his reservations too, letting his skepticism filter through on the potential “advances” welcomed with relief by the Europeans.
US officials openly doubt the assurances that Emmanuel Macron claims to have “obtained” from the master of the Kremlin that there would be no further escalation.
“If there is diplomatic progress, we will certainly welcome it, but we will only believe it when we see it with our eyes at the border,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday. while the major American media highlighted statements from the Kremlin that could cast doubt on French optimism.
The next day, as if to relativize any Russian promise made to France, the Pentagon assured that Moscow continued to strengthen its already extraordinary military presence on the borders of Ukraine, where American intelligence suspects Russia of preparing a potential imminent invasion of the neighboring country.
The major maneuvers launched in Belarus by the Russian and Belarusian armies represent “in our eyes an escalation, certainly not a de-escalation”, also estimated Thursday the American Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on the MSNBC channel.
Washington first tried to avoid commenting on Emmanuel Macron’s mission itself, explaining that it was waiting for a direct report from the French.
“Coordinated” messages
It is now done: President Joe Biden spoke on the telephone with his French counterpart on Wednesday, and their foreign ministers spoke on Thursday.
However, the American press releases do the minimum service.
That of the White House is limited to reporting that the two leaders evoked “the recent meetings of President Macron in Russia and Ukraine”, without an adjective to qualify them. And that of American diplomacy does not even mention them, evoking much more broadly “the joint efforts of NATO allies, EU partners, members of the G7, and other partners to deal with Russia’s persistent military deployment at the borders of Ukraine.
However, the American government insists on the unprecedented coordination that exists in this crisis with its allies, which is readily agreed by French and European diplomats. Presidents Biden and Macron have moreover exchanged three phone calls in eight days.
“The United States welcomes these initiatives because they make it possible to multiply the messages sent to Moscow, insofar as they are coordinated upstream and that there is no dissonance between allies”, explains to AFP Pierre. Morcos, French researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The Westerners who take turns with the Russians are in unison on the threat of unprecedented sanctions in the event of a military offensive, even if, according to this expert, “Paris is trying to bet on the diplomatic path and to invest as much as possible in this field there”.
“For now, the United States has cautiously supported Macron’s diplomatic effort, but skepticism is high, since Washington believes that Putin is determined to invade no matter what,” writes Célia Belin, French researcher at the American think tank Brookings Institution.
In an article published Thursday on the website of the journal Foreign Affairs, she notes that, “unlike the United States and other Western powers, Macron suggested that Russia could ‘legitimately’ claim that its security demands should be discussed “.
This is part of a French desire for renewed dialogue with Moscow, and to redesign the architecture of European security so that the Old Continent is less dependent on American power.
But Emmanuel Macron must be careful “not to appear as the one who opens a rift between the allies at a time when unity is the best deterrent against Russia”, adds the expert.