{"id":28461,"date":"2025-04-17T20:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T20:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28461\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T20:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T20:58:08","slug":"france-says-ukraine-ceasefire-must-start-from-reality-after-us-meetings-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/28461\/","title":{"rendered":"France says Ukraine ceasefire must \u2018start from reality\u2019 after US meetings \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Witkoff, who has traveled to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on multiple occasions, just days ago <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/video\/6371496494112\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told Fox News<\/a> that the peace deal Russia has proposed hinges on \u201cfive territories of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The special envoy did not specify which territories he meant, but they likely refer to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally seized in 2014, as well as Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia \u2014 four regions where Russia conducted sham referendums before illegally annexing them, even though the Kremlin doesn\u2019t fully control those territories.<\/p>\n<p>Kyiv will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ukraine-moscow-kyiv-witkoff-country-will-remain-international-border-change\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">never recognize<\/a> these regions as Russian, Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry said after Witkoff\u2019s comments, calling on the international community to respect the country\u2019s territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders.<\/p>\n<p>While the territorial contours of a ceasefire are just one of the many challenges that lay ahead in striking an agreement, Macron\u2019s office said that Thursday marked the start of a \u201cpositive process in which Europeans are involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal is peace as quickly as possible, a solid peace and a peace that guarantees respect for Ukraine\u2019s essential rights,\u201d the Elys\u00e9e official said.<\/p>\n<p>Europeans have so far struggled to get a seat at the talks and have been warning the U.S. administration against agreeing too quickly to a truce without solid security guarantees for Ukraine, as well as a system for monitoring and responding to any ceasefire violations.<\/p>\n<p>To that end, the French and the British are spearheading a so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing,\u201d which includes more than 30 countries who want to provide support for Ukraine, including the possible deployment of a reassurance force on the ground in case of a ceasefire. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Elys\u00e9e said Macron spoke with Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier in the day and after the meetings. Similar meetings involving high-level representatives from France, Germany, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States will be held in London next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Witkoff, who has traveled to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on multiple occasions, just days&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[6217,32,34,2000,299,36,17104,1824,9204,43,2820,332,811,7070,657,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-28461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-david-lammy","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-emmanuel-macron","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-french-eu-presidency","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-keith-kellogg","17":"tag-macron","18":"tag-marco-rubio","19":"tag-russia","20":"tag-security","21":"tag-steve-witkoff","22":"tag-ukraine","23":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114355313443500333","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}