Ukrainian officials rejected the idea proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron that the West should consider how to meet Russia’s demand for security guarantees if Moscow agrees to negotiations to end Vladimir Putin’s nine-month war in Ukraine.
On Sunday, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, questioned the provision of security guarantees “for a terrorist and murderous state.”
“Instead of Nuremberg – to sign an agreement [Russia] and shake hands?” Danilov tweeted, relating to the trials of Nazi war criminals after World War II. “Ukrainian blood on Putin’s hands won’t disrupt normal business?” he wrote.
He was responding to a TV interview published on Saturday, in which Macron said Europe should discuss “how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table” over the war in Ukraine.
“One of the key issues that we need to address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear of NATO coming right at their doors and the use of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said.
Danilov said he believes that a “denuclearized and demilitarized” Russia is “the best guarantee of peace for Europe and the world.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, Advisor to the Office of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that instead of guarantees to the Kremlin, the world needs security guarantees “from the barbaric intentions of post-Putin Russia.” However, he wrote on social media that this is only possible after trials and convictions of the perpetrators of the war against Ukraine, as well as the imposition of reparations.
This is not the first dispute between Kyiv and Paris over possible negotiations with the Kremlin. Zelenskyi said in May that Macron had urged Ukraine to make concessions to its sovereignty to help Putin save face.
The Elysée rejected Zelenskyy’s allegations at the time and stressed that Macron never asked Zelenskyy for any concessions.