If Macron keeps this up we might see another wave of people in the west pouring their French wine down the drain, as with regard to the lukewarm French attitude to the Iraq invasion. Nothing as effective as boycotting stuff you've already bought.
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French president Emmanuel Macron’s comments that the west should consider how to address Russia’s demands for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in
Ukraine.
In his remarks, broadcast on Saturday, Macron told French TV station TF1 that
Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture,
Reuters reports.
This means that one of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that Nato comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.
That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.
Russia and the US have both said this week they are open to talks in principle, though
US president Joe Biden said he would talk to Putin only if the Kremlin chief showed he was interested in ending the war. Ukraine says negotiations are possible only if
Russia stops attacking and pulls out its troops.
Many in Ukraine and the west are strongly opposed to any negotiation with Putin that would reward him with concessions after nearly 10 months of war, especially as Ukraine has driven back Russian forces from large areas in the past three months.
But Macron‘s remarks suggested he was sympathetic to Moscow’s demand for security guarantees, which was the focus of intense but failed diplomacy in the run-up to the war,
Reuters reports.
On 8 February, weeks before Russia’s invasion, Putin said at a joint news conference with Macron in Moscow that Russia would keep trying to obtain answers from the west to its main three security demands: no more Nato enlargement; no missile deployments near its borders; and a scaling back of Nato’s military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels. The US said at the time that the Russian demands were “non-starters”.
Updated at 10.21 GMT
3h ago09.21 GMT
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