Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin give a press conference after a summit on Ukraine at the Élysée Palace, in Paris, France, 9 December 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/LUDOVIC MARIN / POOL
French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday urged Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine in the first phone call between the two leaders since 2022, the Élysée Palace has said.
According to a statement from the Palace, Macron “emphasised France’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” during the two-hour conversation and called for “the establishment, as soon as possible, of a ceasefire and the launch of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia for a solid and lasting settlement of the conflict”.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said in its own statement that Putin had told Macron that the war in Ukraine was a “direct consequence of the policies of Western states” towards Russia.
The Russian leader, it said, “reminded” the French president that the West had “for many years … ignored Russia’s security interests, created an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine, condoned violations of the rights of Russian-speaking residents, and is now pursuing the course of prolonging the hostilities by supplying the Kiev regime with various modern weapons”.
Putin also stressed that any peace settlement should be “comprehensive and long-term”, the Kremlin said, as well as “address the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and be based on new territorial realities” — implying acceptance of Russia’s annexation of large swaths of eastern Ukraine.
Macron had informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of his plans to speak with Putin and called Zelensky afterwards to discuss his conversation with the Russian leader, Reuters reported.
During the call, Putin and Macron also discussed Iran, with the Kremlin saying they had agreed on the country’s “legitimate right to develop peaceful nuclear energy” and both sides stressing that Tehran should “continue to fulfil its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, including cooperation with the IAEA”.
The conversation came after US President Donald Trump rejected an offer by Putin for Moscow to help mediate the conflict between Israel and Iran last month, telling the Russian leader instead that he should “mediate Russia first” by ending the war in Ukraine.
Macron travelled to Moscow in February 2022, just weeks before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in an attempt to dissuade Putin from launching the war. He then continued to speak with the Russian leader by phone after the invasion began, with the last call between them taking place in September that year.