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Kiev needs to have a serious conversation about territory, the French president has said
Resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict will not be quick or easy and will require Kiev to face the issue of territory, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned.
Speaking to an annual conference of ambassadors at the Elysee Palace on Monday, Macron addressed a number of global issues, including the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.
“The Ukrainians need to hold a realistic discussion on the territorial questions and only they can do that,” the French president said. “The United States of America has to help us change the nature of the situation and convince Russia to come to the negotiating table,” while the European members of NATO have the responsibility to craft security guarantees for Ukraine, Macron added.
While no specific peace proposal has been made public, rumors in the media have suggested that US President-elect Donald Trump intends to propose a ceasefire that would “freeze” the conflict along the current front line. Some Western governments have sought to handle Kiev’s expected objections to this by offering Ukraine security guarantees, while stopping short of NATO membership.
The French president also warned that there is “no quick and easy solution” in Ukraine, even though Trump has pledged to end the conflict swiftly once he takes office.
Continued support for Kiev is vital for the “credibility” of the West, which would be “undermined” by any compromises brought about by “Ukraine fatigue,” Macron told the diplomats in Paris.
“The new American president himself knows that the US has no chance of winning anything if Ukraine loses,” Macron said, adding that “capitulation of Ukraine cannot be good for Europeans and Americans.”
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has outlawed any talks with Russia so long as President Vladimir Putin is in office and has insisted on a “peace platform” that would see a unilateral Russian withdrawal from all territories claimed by Kiev, payment of reparations, and war crimes prosecutions.
Moscow has dismissed Zelensky’s proposal as delusional. Russia’s terms for ending the hostilities insist on Ukraine becoming neutral, demilitarized and “denazified,” while accepting the “new territorial realities” on the ground and guaranteeing all the rights of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers. Any peace will also require the removal of all Western sanctions on Russia as well, the Kremlin has said.
