Ahead of Monday’s meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US president Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the necessity of security guarantees for Ukraine in any peace agreement with Russia, adding that Russia did not want peace but rather Ukraine’s “capitulation”.
"Do I think President Putin wants peace? If you want my honest opinion, no. He wants the capitulation of Ukraine, that's what he proposed,” Macron said about Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who met with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday.
Following a videoconference meeting with other European leaders Sunday to coordinate their position before the meeting in Washington Monday, Macron said that a “robust, lasting peace” would respect Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”, while Trump appears to be seeking just an end to fighting between Russia and Ukraine.
Any possible peace agreement must include security guarantees for Ukraine Macron said, to deter Russia from attacking again, and pushing farther into Europe.
“The security of Europeans and France is at stake,” he said, speaking from his summer residence at Fort de Brégançon in south-east France.
Macron and other leaders will accompany Zelensky to “present a united front between Europeans and Ukrainians”, he said, and ask the United States “to what extent” they are prepared to contribute to the security guarantees for Ukraine.
Macron was cautious about a suggestion that the US could contribute to a security guarantee that resembles Nato’s defence mandate
Sunday evening, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told US broadcaster CNN that the US “is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from Nato - directly from the United States and other European countries.”
“I believe that a theoretical article is not enough,” said Macron. “The question is one of substance.”
(with AFP)
