The President of the Republic referred to his statements on future security guarantees for Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed any controversy “where there is none” on Tuesday December 6 after speaking in Kyiv and eastern Europe about future security guarantees for Russia.
“I think we shouldn’t make big cases, try to see controversy where there is none,” he said upon arrival at the EU-Balkans summit in Tirana. “I’ve always said the same thing, that is, in the end, in the peace talks, there will be territorial issues about Ukraine, and they belong to the Ukrainians, and there will be collective security issues throughout the region,” he added.
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“It’s the same thing I said from the beginning, the same thing that we worked on and discussed in February, March, by the way,” he continued, referring to attempts, notably on his part, during a meeting with Vladimir Putin on March 7 February in the Kremlin to give Russia guarantees of NATO presence on its borders to try to avoid war in Ukraine.
Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that he had spoken to US President Joe Biden about “the security architecture we want to live in tomorrow,” noting the need to “guarantee Russia the day it comes.” for his own safety” to come back to the negotiating table. “One of the main points is the fear that NATO will come to their doors, it is the use of weapons that can threaten Russia,” he then explained on the French channel TF1.
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These remarks have drawn criticism from Ukraine and some Eastern European countries, which have taken a particularly firm stance on Russia, accusing Emmanuel Macron of being too lenient or making too many overtures towards Moscow. “Someone wants to give security guarantees to a terrorist and murderous state?” started the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiï Danilov, on Twitter and spoke of “carpet diplomacy”.
For Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz, Mr Macron is “making a mistake by saying what he says” and the West must adhere to a “policy of isolation” from Moscow. “Vladimir Putin has a mental structure that means that any attempt at contact, any reassurance, strengthens him psychologically,” he hammered home in an interview with RMF FM radio.
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Latvian Deputy Prime Minister Artis Pabriks argued in the Financial Times that the idea of giving security guarantees to Russia “is tantamount to falling into the trap of Putin’s narrative that the West and Ukraine are to blame for the war.”
The way out of the Ukraine conflict will be to offer “security guarantees for Ukraine,” EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday, adding that “we will speak for Russia later.”