Macron asked Ukraine to make concessions to help Putin save face! Le Drian explains to Josep Borrell

French President Emmanuel Macron asked Ukraine to make concessions on its sovereignty to help Russian leader Vladimir Putin save face, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

In an interview with Italian TV channel RAI’s “Porta a Porta” talk show broadcast Thursday evening, Zelenskyy was asked about Macron’s comments on Monday, in which he warned Europe must avoid humiliating Putin.

“We want the Russian army to leave our land — we aren’t on Russian soil,” Zelenskyy replied. “We won’t help Putin save face by paying with our territory. That would be unjust.” Zelenskyy added that Ukraine would never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Macron was looking “in vain” for “a way out for Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

The Elysée rejected Zelenskyy’s allegations. “The president of the Republic has never discussed anything with Vladimir Putin without the agreement of President Zelenskyy and has never asked President Zelenskyy for any concession. He has always said that it was up to the Ukrainians to decide the terms of their negotiations with the Russians,” an Elysée official said Friday.

In a speech at the closing ceremony of the Conference on the Future of Europe on Monday, Macron said Europe must “never give in to the temptation of humiliation, nor the spirit of revenge,” when it came to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The French president also said “when peace returns to European soil, we will need to build new security balances.” The reference has been read as an indication that Macron was still seeking to reach a compromise with Putin.

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Top diplomats from the Group of Seven wealthy nations gathered Thursday in northern Germany for a three-day meeting centered on Russia’s war against Ukraine and the wider impact it is having around the world, particularly on food and energy prices.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the meeting’s host, said the conflict already had become a “global crisis” because shipments of staple crops are stuck in Ukraine, a major agricultural exporter.

“Twenty-five million tons (27.5 million U.S. tons) of grain are currently blocked in Ukrainian ports, particularly Odesa,” Baerbock said. “Grain that’s food for millions of people around the world, and which is needed particularly urgently in African countries and the Middle East.”

“That’s why we are discussing how the grain blockade exerted by Russia can be unblocked, how we can get the grain out to the world,” she added.

Baerbock warned that the brewing global food emergency was being further fuelled by climate change — another topic the ministers plan to discuss during their meeting in Weissenhaus, a resort on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast northeast of Hamburg.

About 3,500 police officers were deployed at the event site to provide security.

The foreign ministers of Ukraine and neighboring Moldova, which fears it could become the next target of Russia’s aggression, have been invited to attend the meeting as guests. Indonesia’s foreign minister, whose country chairs the Group of 20 major economies this year, is expected to join remotely for part of the meeting Friday, when relations with China are on the agenda.

Speaking earlier Thursday in Berlin, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the German government’s recent decisions to step up military support for his country.

“We see a positive, positive dynamic,” Kuleba told reporters after a meeting with German lawmakers. “We have to make sure that this positive dynamic is maintained.”

Kuleba said he considered it a “signal of strength” that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party had dropped its opposition to providing Ukraine with heavy weapons.

He also expressed hope that the European Union would soon approve Ukraine’s application to start the process of joining the bloc. French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested it could be decades before Ukraine is ready to become a full EU member.

Baerbock, who recently became the first top representative of Germany to travel to Ukraine since the start of the war, offered support for Ukraine’s EU application. Asked about Ukraine’s request for fighter jets, Baerbock was less encouraging, citing the risk of NATO being drawn into a conflict with Russia.

“When it comes to no-fly zones and aviation support we’ve already taken a clear position,” she told reporters.

Britain’s foreign secretary called for Ukrain to receive more sophisticated military support, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin should face “a defeat in Ukraine that denies him any benefit and ultimately constrains further aggression.”

“To help Ukraine, we need to go further and faster,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the meeting, according to remarks released by her office.

[brittanytaz]

Zelensky will be remembered for not taking flight from Kiev. Macron will be remembered like his grandfather photographed crying as the NAZI'S paraded down the Champs-Élysées in 1940. Step it up and send help. You shame those buried on Flaunders Field.

[corazonagoncillo]

Did Macron ever consider what the Ukrainians have been suffering all these months when he suggested "to save face of Putin"?

[vadimuha]

Hey Macron, how about you give a piece of France as a consession?