Macron: ‘progress was achieved’ during talks with Zelensky and Putin
French President Emmanuel Macron said that during his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he managed to "achieve some progress to move towards the security of the region."
"During the discussions that we held with Presidents Putin and Zelensky, we were able to achieve some progress in order to, so to speak, move towards the security of the region. We should not engage in any unilateral formats, but we should come up with exactly such formats that would help reduce escalation," Macron said at a joint briefing with Zelensky during his visit to Kyiv.
Macron added that all parties should work to bring their positions closer together.
"We are in the kind of world order that was built after World War II, and this world order continued until recently. And now we need to come together again and talk about certain positions, make clarifications in order to, firstly, reduce pressure, the level of escalation, and secondly, this has to to be purely on the basis of the Minsk agreements and in compliance with all procedures . But the main thing is that after discussing these issues at the Trilateral Contact Group, perhaps we will be able to help ensure that the documents that were signed in 2015 are implemented so that the explanations that will be made in the coming weeks can remove the differences and contribute to the restoration of mutual trust, bring back the atmosphere of calm and remove escalation," he said.
Macron clarified that this implies a world order where every country has the sovereign right to choose the path.
Macron was on a visit to Moscow, where he met with Putin. After that, according to the Financial Times, Vladimir Putin was close to agreeing to de-escalate the situation around Ukraine. Later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin and Macron had reached an agreement on Ukraine.