Emmanuel Macron held the traditional conference in front of French ambassadors abroad.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that Ukraine must adopt a position “realistic“on the territorial issues as part of efforts to convince Russia to come to the negotiating table. “The Ukrainians have to lead realistic discussions on territorial issues and only they can lead them”declared Emmanuel Macron during the annual conference of French ambassadors.
Evoking the promise of the American president-elect Donald Trump to quickly end the war in Ukraine, the French head of state declared: “There will be no quick and easy solution in Ukraine”. The role of the United States in the peace process is to “help us change the nature of the situation and convince Russia to come to the negotiating table” and that of Europe “build security guarantees”added Emmanuel Macron.
Emmanuel Macron affirmed that the Ukrainians should “conduct realistic discussions on territorial issues” to find a settlement to the conflict caused by the Russian invasion in 2022, in a context unfavorable to kyiv on the ground #AFP pic.twitter.com/isX6IVvRNn
— Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) https://twitter.com/afpfr/status/1876256215396716934?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Ukraine’s allies must ensure that it has sufficient support to enter into a strong position in the negotiations, he said, without elaborating. “We cannot, as Europeans, let Russia win in Ukraine, we cannot do it for the international order, we cannot do it for our own security”he declared again.
Moscow, which annexed Crimea in 2014, launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls about a fifth of the countryincluding most of the eastern Donbass region. The Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskywhich previously conditioned any negotiation with Russia on the restitution of occupied territories, recently recognized that a diplomatic outcome would save lives, muting its previous demands for a withdrawal of Moscow’s forces from all Ukrainian territories.
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