” This is a good thing “ : Emmanuel Macron remained rather laconic about the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington, Wednesday, December 21. The head of state was questioned on his return from Jordan, where he met King Abdullah II in the morning, the day after a conference on the stabilization of Iraq, held in the shadow of the war in Ukraine .
“The United States is doing a lot militarily and financially”he said, aboard his plane, at the Worldto wall street journal and the Lebanese daily An Naharwithout seeming sorry that the Ukrainian leader is booking US President Joe Biden his first outing from Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion ten months ago. “Europe is also doing a lot and we are in close coordination”, however, he wishes to clarify. For him, while the mid-term elections have changed the balance of power across the Atlantic, ” this is a good thing “ also that Mr. Zelensky speaks in Congress, in particular to present “the ten-point plan that he had the audacity and the courage to put on the table to start work on ending this war”.
While he is the most insistent among Western leaders in asking for a way out of the conflict through negotiation, when the Ukrainians judge the time has come according to the balance of power on the ground, the President of the Republic seems to have in mind that the hour of diplomacy has not yet struck: “Those who thought the Russians were ready for a ceasefire and peace could see that they were not. What the Russians have been asking for from the start is surrender, not peace”he says.
“The priority today is to defend Ukraine”
Mr. Macron seeks to clarify the order of priorities, as if to avoid any misunderstanding about his intentions: “We are on a strategy of absolute defense of Ukraine, of victory for Ukraine, which will be built in the end by a new text which must build a new order ensuring the political and security stability of this region and of the Europe »said the Head of State, in order to calm the outcry aroused by his remarks, at the beginning of December, about “security guarantees” that should be offered to Russia, as part of a negotiated solution. These guarantees for the Russians? “It’s not the priority; this is one of the things that will come to an end. The priority today is to defend Ukraine, which we have been doing since day one.says Mr. Macron.
You have 58.59% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.