There must be an impulse for peace to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, but French president Emmanuel Macron is skeptical that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to resolve the conflict.
“When I look at the situation and facts, I don’t see that President Putin is very willing to get peace now,” Macron told the “Meet the Press” moderator of NBC News, Kristen Welker, in an exclusive interview on Monday after a high -risk White House meeting on Monday. “But maybe I’m too pessimistic.”
He also said: “The optimism of its president must be taken seriously. So, if he considers that he can make an agreement, this is great news, and we have to do what we can to have a lot.”
Macron insisted that the United States must apply pressure to Russia and Putin to find a resolution, including the introduction of more sanctions.
If there is no progress in the bilateral meeting, President Donald Trump announced between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and if a trilateral meeting falls, “or if the Russians do not comply with this approach, yes, we have to increase the sanctions, secondary and primary sanctions,” Macron said.
“There is an aggressor, which is Russia. There is a country that decided to kill people, stole the children and that rejected fire and peace, so we cannot simply create an equivalent situation between Ukraine and Russia.”
Ukraine must receive security guarantees to avoid future Russian attacks that can prolong the conflict or start a new war, Macron said after his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy and the main European leaders.
“If you make any peace agreement without security guarantees, Russia will never respect your words, you will never fulfill your own commitments,” Macron said.
He said he was promising that Trump said that one of the key points of his meeting on Friday with Putin was that he had accepted security guarantees for Ukraine.
When asked about the possibility of a high fire, Macron said: “I hope”, pointing out that Russia carried out attacks in Ukraine, even when the delegation of world leaders was in the United States.
“It is impossible for a Ukrainian president and Ukrainian officials talk about peace as his country is already being destroyed that his civilians are being killed,” he said.
Putin maintained the pressure in the period prior to conversations with mortal attacks in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia during the night, apparently trying to push Zelenskyy to satisfy what is believed to be demands of territory occupied by Russia in Ukraine.
Macron said there should be no land exchange, as Trump has suggested, particularly because there have been long periods during the Russian war that his army could not obtain significant profits by taking control of the Ukrainian lands.
“I do not see any exchange in the proposal of the Russians, except an exchange compared to what they wanted at the beginning,” he said.
“Now, when we talk about territory, it is for the Ukrainian president and for the Ukrainian people to discuss him,” he said.
A heavyweight team joined Macron in the White House, including the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the NATO general secretary, Mark Rutte, the United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, highlighting the importance of conversations.
Macron has been one of the most open leaders in Europe about war. He said in a speech in March that Russia represented a threat to the entire continent.
And on Monday, he emphasized again that the threat extends far beyond Ukraine.
“What is happening in Ukraine is extremely important for Ukrainian peoples, obviously, but for all the security of Europe, because we talk about containing nuclear energy, which decided not to respect international borders anymore. And I think it is very important for their country, because it is a matter of credibility,” he said. “The way we will behave in Ukraine will be a test for our collective credibility in the rest of the world.”
