French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin made “a historic and fundamental mistake” in attacking Ukraine and is now “isolated”.
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“I think, and I told him, that he made a historic and fundamental mistake for his people, for himself and for history,” Macron said in an interview with the French regional press on the 100th day of the conflict.
“I think he isolated himself. Locking yourself up in isolation is one thing, knowing how to get out is a difficult path,” stressed Emmanuel Macron.
The French President reiterated that we “must not humiliate Russia” – remarks that are very badly perceived in Eastern Europe – “so that the day the fighting stops, we can find a way out through diplomatic channels.”
When pressured to go to Kyiv while many of his European colleagues were already there, he replied: “Today I’m not ruling anything out”.
“We want to increase financial and military support to Ukraine. And finally, you are doing everything to get grain out of Ukraine,” he added, contradicting Vladimir Putin, for whom exporting this grain is “not a problem”.
Deliveries of Cesar guns by France to the Ukrainian army would be “compensated”, he also specified.
“I asked our industrialists to speed up arms production, it’s not just about rebuilding our stocks, but also about strengthening our independence,” the head of state stressed.