Crisis in Ukraine
The French president met this Tuesday with his counterpart in Kiev and manages to get the Normandy Quartet to meet again in Berlin
After meeting in Kiev with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodímir Zelenski, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, affirmed this Tuesday at a press conference that “the Minsk agreements are the only possibility capable of achieving a solid peace in Donbass.” It was the same thing that Russia’s top leader, Vladimir Putin, told Macron on Monday. According to the French president, Zelenski also shares that idea and, with the aim of its implementation, this Thursday in Berlin the emissaries of the so-called Normandy Group (Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine) will meet again.
The Russian leader asked Macron in Moscow to talk to Zelensky about his attitude towards the Minsk agreements. He also pointed out that, if necessary, the two would talk again on the phone. Putin stated that, on the answer given by the top Ukrainian leader, the steps that Russia takes in the future would depend.
Macron declared that his Russian counterpart gave him guarantees that “there will be no deterioration of the situation or escalation in the current crisis (…) because of Russia”, which shows that Moscow’s motive for an intervention would be for Kiev to decide recapture Donetsk and Luhansk (Donbass) by force and that their deployment on the border is essentially intimidating.
According to the French president, “for me, it was about preventing an escalation and opening up new perspectives. This goal was achieved.” “Now it is possible to advance the negotiations” between Russia and Ukraine in the framework of the Normandy Quartet, he added. He clarified, however, that resolving the crisis “could still take months.” Misgivings prevail and an unstable situation. As proof, President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on Americans who are on Ukrainian soil to “leave the country.”
In his conversation with the French president on Monday, Putin did not commit to withdrawing the troops deployed along the border, an extreme that Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov confirmed from Moscow on Tuesday. Zelensky, for his part, stressed that the Russian president can say whatever he wants, but, in his opinion, “the important thing is the facts.”
He also said he was hopeful of meeting Putin soon at a Normandy Group summit, an interview he has been looking forward to for months. In this regard, Dmitri Peskov explained on Tuesday that «Russia does not reject a meeting. If such a meeting really contributes to cutting this Gordian knot, we would meet with whoever it was,” the spokesman said. But, in his words, “the specific objectives of a possible meeting between Putin and Zelensky are not understood.”
On Monday, in the presence of Macron, Putin called Ukraine “my beautiful” and urged him to have “patience” and comply with the Minsk agreements. On Tuesday, Zelensky said he agreed that his land is “beautiful,” but disagreed with the Russian leader that Ukraine is his. On January 31, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, stated that the implementation of the Minsk agreements would lead to the “destruction” of the country.
the three red lines
For the Government of Ukraine there are “three red lines”: no compromise on its territorial integrity, no direct negotiations with the separatists and no interference in its foreign policy. However, according to Moscow’s interpretation, the Minsk agreements inevitably oblige to sit down to negotiate with the Donbass separatist rebels.
Putin told Macron that Ukraine “twice tried to take Donbass by force” and “does not want to comply with the Minsk agreements.” Therefore, he called on the Ukrainian leaders to “gather courage and begin to implement the specified points” of the pact. Which are? The head of the Kremlin already told his French counterpart at the end of January that “we must maintain a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk and legalize a special autonomous status for Donbass.” However, this is where the Ukrainian authorities see the trap, since a dialogue without limiting the powers that must be transferred to this region condemns any agreement effort to failure.
Merkel’s powerful shadow
JOANA SERRA | berlin
For the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the “shared goal” is “to preserve Europe from war”; for the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to maintain a “demanding dialogue” with Moscow; and for his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, to demonstrate that “avoiding war is still possible.” The three leaders, representatives of the rotating presidencies of the EU -France-, the G7 -Germany- and the OSCE -Poland- launched a message of cohesion to the Kremlin on Tuesday, demonstrating that “we evaluate the situation in the same way” Scholz said.
However, in this diplomatic knot around the Ukrainian conflict there seems to be a more or less discreet struggle between Macron and the chancellor for the position of “heir” to the former leader of European reference who was Angela Merkel. Scholz has behaved until now as a silent and even timid leader, which has cost him criticism in his own country for being ineffective. Macron was already ahead of him and has added the goals of his meeting with Vladimir Putin, followed by the one held this Tuesday, on the way to Berlin, with the Ukrainian Volodímir Zelenski. From Moscow was the image of a meeting with two leaders at both ends of a very long table. Macron departed from Kiev with announcements of “progress”. The French president is the driving factor, or at least that’s how he portrays himself. Scholz represents the social democrat successor to Merkel who has yet to find his place.
The chancellor made his debut at the White House on Monday with Joe Biden, who marked the path of threats to Moscow: if there is an invasion, the Nord-Stream II gas pipeline will not come into operation. Scholz fell silent, as he always does when mentioning a project on which Germany’s gas supply depends. The gas pipeline must complete the Nord-Stream I that Gerhard Schröder and Putin sealed in 2005. Merkel did not stop its construction even because of the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
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