KYIV, Ukraine — French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him he would not further escalate the Ukraine crisis in their marathon talks in the Kremlin a day earlier.
Macron’s remarks on a visit to Kyiv came after the Kremlin denied reports that he and Putin struck a deal on de-escalating the crisis. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “in the current situation, Moscow and Paris can’t be reaching any deals.”
Macron met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion of its southern neighbor. Moscow has massed over 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, but insists it has no plans to attack.
The Kremlin wants guarantees from the West that NATO will not accept Ukraine and other former Soviet nations as members, that it halt weapon deployments there and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe — demands the U.S. and NATO reject as nonstarters.
At a news conference after his meeting with Zelenskyy, Macron said Putin told him during their more than five-hour meeting Monday that “he won’t be initiating an escalation. I think it is important.”
According to the French president, Putin also said there won’t be any Russian “permanent (military) base” or “deployment” in Belarus, where Russia had sent a large amount of troops for major war games that are about to kick off.
Peskov said withdrawing Russian troops from Belarus after the war games was the plan all along.
Macron said both Putin and Zelenskyy confirmed to him that they were willing to implement the so-called Minsk agreements aimed at ending the separatist conflict in the eastern Ukraine. The 2015 peace deal is “the only path allowing to build peace … and find a sustainable political solution.”
Macron said the presidential advisers of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine will meet Thursday in Berlin to discuss the next steps. Dialogue is the only way to ease tensions, yet “It will take time to get results,” he said.
Western leaders in recent weeks have engaged in multiple rounds of diplomacy in the hope of de-escalating the tensions and preventing an attack. High-level talks have taken place against the backdrop of military drills in Russia and Belarus. On Tuesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said six large landing ships were moving from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea for exercises.
