Moscow: French President Emmanuel Macron was in Moscow on Monday hoping to find the foundation along with Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and NATO, at the beginning of a week of intense diplomacy for Russian concerns was preparing for a pro-Western neighbor’s invasion.
With tens of thousands of Russian troops camping near the Ukrainian border, Macron will be the first top Western leader who met Putin since the crisis began in December.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also meet Monday with US President Joe Biden in Washington, when Western leaders appear to maintain a united Front in their biggest dispute with Russia since the end of the Cold War.
US officials said Moscow had collected 110,000 troops near the border with Ukraine and was on track to collect considerable strength – around 150,000 soldiers – for full-scale invasion in mid-February.
Russia insisted on not having a plan to attack and instead filed its own demand for security guarantees she said would facilitate tension.
Makron, who will continue to Kyiv Tuesday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told reporters on his plane from Paris that he was “quite” optimistic in talks.
He said he did not expect a solution to the crisis in the “short term”, but he was ready to seriously assume Russian security issues.
‘Very important’ talks
“We must try … to see where there is a point of disagreement and possible convergence point” to produce “equations that allow the de-escalation military”, said Macron.
But he said NATO would never accept “big changes” in his policy and there was no compromise that could be agreed upon with Ukrainian questions “without Ukraine”.
Moscow accused the West, especially Washington and NATO, ignoring what he said was a legitimate concern for his security.
This demanded a permanent ban in Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic, joined the US-led alliance and that the block returned its military presence in Eastern Europe.
Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Monday conversation between Macron and Putin “was very important” but suggested no one had to expect a big step forward.
“The situation is too complicated to expect a decisive breakthrough in one meeting,” Peskov told reporters.
Makron, whose country is currently heading the European Union and who faces the challenges of re-election in April, has tried to position itself as the UE’s main figure in negotiations with Russia.
He had talked to Putin by telephone several times during the past week and held a 40-minute call with Biden on Sunday.
Macron is expected to try to encourage a traffic jam plan for conflict celebrations with Russian-supported separatists in East Ukraine, and can make offers to Russia for consultation on weapons control and NATO expansion.
Ukrainian ‘red lines’
Foreign Minister Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba told reporters that Kyiv would not succumb to the “red line” in the conflict by handing any area or agreed to direct talks with separatists.
“Ukraine approaches this process … with a clear understanding of our red line and without desire and readiness to make our concessions that cannot be accepted by us,” he told reporters in Kyiv.
The United States has led in the warning about the invasion, with officials in Washington citing intelligence assessments this weekend that Russia has increased preparation for invasion.
Such strength will be able to take Kyiv within 48 hours in an attack that will kill up to 50,000 civilians, 25,000 Ukrainian troops and 10,000 Russian triggers and trigger floods of refugees of up to five million people, the official said.
Ahead of the talks between Scholz and Biden, Germany said he would send up to 350 soldiers to Lithuania to help bind the east side of NATO, after a similar deployment by the United States.
While Scholz was in Washington, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, will be in Kyiv along with Czech colleagues, Slovakia and Austria for a two-day visit.
Scholz himself will be in Moscow and Kyiv next week for talks with Putin and Zelensky.