French President Emmanuel Macron has doubled down on his call for the West to provide Russia with security guarantees as part of any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and prevent the conflict from spreading across Europe.
“Peaceful times will require talks. First and foremost for guarantees for Ukraine for its territorial integrity and its long-term security. But also for Russia as it will be party to an armistice or peace treaty,“ Mr. Macron said during a TV interview aboard an aircraft carrier that was broadcast late Tuesday.
Mr. Macron was defending a stance that has angered Ukraine and its Western allies.
“Whoever reproaches me for asserting myself on this topic should then explain to me what they propose. What the people who refuse to prepare and work on this are proposing is total war. A total war that will involve the whole continent,” Mr. Macron said.
Senior Ukrainian officials have dismissed the notion that Russia needs security guarantees as an attempt to lay the foundations for Moscow to receive concessions after launching the war. The French president’s critics say he also risks reinforcing one of President Vladimir Putin’s rationales for the invasion: That Russia was countering the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to Eastern Europe.
“This means that one of the essential points we must address—as President Putin has always said—is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron added.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky, swiftly rejected the idea in a Twitter post, saying the “civilized world needs ‘security guarantees’ from barbaric intentions of post-Putin Russia.”
Mr. Macron’s outreach to Mr. Putin has been a source of tension with Ukraine and its allies since the early months of the conflict when he regularly held phone calls with the Russian leader. After Moscow failed in its attempt to capture Kyiv Mr. Macron warned: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.”
Mr. Macron has long called on the European Union to shore up its defenses as a way to ensure peace across the region. A month before Russia invaded Ukraine, the French leader delivered a high-profile address before the European Parliament that called for “a new order of security and stability” that he said would be built by Europeans, shared with NATO allies and then offered “for negotiation to Russia.”