On February 12, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian leader Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation during which the leaders discussed issues related to ensuring long-term legal security guarantees for the Russian Federation and overcoming the stalemate in settling the situation in Ukraine, including in view of Emmanuel Macron’s conversations with the leaders of Ukraine, the United States and a number of European states.
This is reported by the press service of the Elysee Palace.
The conversation between the leaders of the two countries lasted 1 hour 40 minutes.
"Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron also discussed the situation concerning provocative speculations regarding the allegedly planned Russian “invasion” of Ukraine, which is accompanied by massive supplies of modern weaponry to Ukraine, thus creating conditions for possible aggressive actions by the Ukrainian military in Donbas," the Russian news agency TASS reports.
This information was also confirmed by the press secretary of the president of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov to the Russian Interfax service.
"Yes, the conversation took place," he said.
As informed in the Elysee Palace, the presidents of France and Russia discussed ways to move forward in the implementation of the Minsk Agreements and also continued to discuss ways to ensure stability and security in Europe. Macron told Putin that "sincere dialogue is incompatible with escalation".
In addition, Paris reported that it is necessary to "try to ease the growing tensions in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis".
In his Twitter account, Macron urged international partners to start building a response that would avoid war.
"Let's start building an answer that is useful for Russia, useful for our entire Europe, an answer that will avoid war, create elements of trust, stability, and visibility. Together," he said.
According to the President of France, we need to move towards de-escalation.
"What we need is to move towards the de-escalation. We know the terms. The key collective security issues, the Ukrainian question, the security situation in Belarus and throughout the region: let's move forward," he wrote.
In addition, the Kremlinreportedthat two leaders had an in-depth exchange of opinions on the security situation.
"Vladimir Putin once again drew attention to the absence of a substantive response from the United States and NATO to the Russian initiatives. He also stressed the reluctance of the leading Western powers to prompt the Kiev authorities to implement the Minsk agreements, which was demonstrated again by the futility of the February 10 round of consultations in Berlin between political advisors to the Normandy format leaders," the Kremlin reported.