Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) gestures during a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow, on February 7, 2022. THIBAULT CAMUS / AFP
The French presidency on Sunday, January 21, welcomed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to speak with Emmanuel Macron, after the French leader said Europe should reach out to Russia again over ending the war in Ukraine.
“It is welcome that the Kremlin has publicly agreed to this approach. We will decide in the coming days on the best way to proceed,” the Elysée said.
The French presidency stressed, however, that any discussion with Moscow would be conducted “in full transparency” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European allies, and that its goal remained to secure a “solid and lasting peace” for Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had “expressed readiness to engage in dialogue” with his French counterpart in an interview published Sunday by state news agency RIA Novosti.
Macron earlier in the week said he believed Europe should reach back out to Putin, rather than leaving the United States alone to take the lead in negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The invasion of Ukraine and President Putin’s obstinacy ended any possibility of dialogue” over the past three years, the Elyéee said. However, it added, “As soon as the prospect of a ceasefire and peace negotiations becomes clearer, it once again becomes useful to talk to Putin.”
The United States is hosting further negotiations aimed at ending the conflict this weekend in Florida. The talks are mediated by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, with Ukrainian and European envoys on one side, and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who arrived Saturday, on the other.
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Zelensky had said Washington had mooted a trilateral format, which would mark Moscow and Kyiv’s first face-to-face negotiations in half a year, but the Kremlin on Sunday denied that three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States were on the cards.