Emmanuel Macron has been blasted by the Ukrainian Foreign Minister after the French President said Russia must not be “humiliated” over its invasion of Ukraine.
In an interview with a regional newspaper Mr Macron said that it was vital so that peace can be maintained when the war is over. Mr Macron added that it would be necessary to build an “exit ramp”.
He said: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.”
The French President added that he was “convinced that it is France’s role to be a mediating power”.
However, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has blasted Mr Macron’s comments.
Writing on Twitter, he said that such calls “only humiliate France” and other countries who call for a similar policy towards Russia.
He said: “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it.
“Because it is Russia that humiliates itself.
“We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place.
“This will bring peace and save lives.”
Mr Macron has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone a number of times in order to encourage negotiations between the two sides.
It comes as the war reached its 100th day on Saturday with fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region.
In the meantime Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told EURACTIV there is no point in talking to Vladimir Putin if we really want him to understand he is isolated.
According to Estonian PM, this can be seen as a thinly veiled criticism of largely unsuccessful phone diplomacy with Moscow.
“I feel that if everybody is constantly calling him, he doesn’t get the message that he’s isolated. So if we want to get the message through that actually ‘you are isolated’, don’t call him – there’s no point,” she repeated a message she had told an international audience at Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn the same day.
“He feels that he’s the centre of attention because everybody wants to talk to him. But what do we get out of this? I don’t see any results, because after all these talks, Bucha happened, Irpin happened – we don’t see any signs of de-escalation,” she added.
Asked if it would make sense to ‘keep diplomatic channels open’, Kallas told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview she personally does not see “any point in talking to him”.
Over the past few months, France and Germany have faced increased criticism for being responsible for a failed Minsk peace process, which has sought to halt the war in Ukraine’s east that began when Russia-backed separatists seized swaths of territory following Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. /Argumentum.al
