Macron, Putin Working Towards Ukraine Ceasefire

 

by Kyle Anzalone 

Posted onFebruary 20, 2022CategoriesNews

The office of French President Emmanuel Macron said that a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin resulted in an agreement to work towards a ceasefire in Ukraine. Fighting has escalated in the separatist Donbas region over the past week with hundreds of explosions reported.

The coming talks will come under the Normandy Format. In 2015, Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine developed the Minsk Protocols conducted within the Normandy Format. Minsk II has been mostly successful in keeping fighting in Ukraine’s civil war to a minimum.

Recent talks between the four parties took place in Berlin, without any progress. At that time, the next meeting was planned for March.

It seems the pace of that diplomacy will now rapidly accelerate. Macron planned to speak with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz shortly after his call with Putin. The French statement said, “intense diplomatic work will take place in the coming days.”

The Kremlin confirmed Elysee’s statement. The Russian press release said that Putin raised the issue of “pumping of modern weapons and ammunition by NATO countries into Ukraine, which pushes Kiev to a military solution to the so-called Donbass problem.”

The potential Paris-Moscow breakthrough comes as the US government is adamant that a Russian invasion will occur. On Sunday, CBS News reported, “The U.S. has intelligence that Russian commanders have received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine.”

While Biden says he is convinced that Putin has decided on invasion, Macron has continued to say Putin has made no such decision. After a meeting with Macron earlier this month, Putin said that a proposal from Paris laid the basis for a potential resolution.

Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.

https://news.antiwar.com/2022/02/20/macron-putin-working-towards-ukraine-ceasefire/