In the Ukrainian file, several critical voices are being heard on the alarmist and sometimes destabilizing position of the United States, which has decided to evacuate its diplomatic personnel from Kiev, while the security situation in Ukraine does not yet require it.
On the evening of Tuesday, January 25, an American cargo plane landed in Kiev, delivering to the Ukrainian army several dozen anti-tank missiles of the javelin. In this context, the Europeans, and notoriously France, are trying to carve out a place for themselves in the process of de-escalation between Americans and Russians, and Emmanuel Macron will try to re-engage in dialogue with Vladimir Putin and restart negotiations within the framework of the ” Normandy format”, writes our correspondent in Kiev, Stephane Siohan
Also on Tuesday, during a joint press conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron announced that he would have a telephone conversation on Friday January 28 with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “ If there were to be an aggression by Russia on Ukraine, the response will be there, and the very high cost “, thus declared the French president.
Irritation of European diplomacy
In reality, French diplomacy and its European counterparts are privately irritated by American maneuvers in Ukraine. In Paris and in other chancelleries, it is rather difficult to digest the decision deemed premature by the Americans, the British and the Australians to evacuate their diplomatic personnel from Kiev, while the preventive mobilization of 8,500 American soldiers can still put oil on the fire, before a new crucial meeting, Friday, in Geneva, during which the United States must provide written answers to Russian security requests.
In this context, Paris and Berlin are playing the card of relaunching the Minsk II process, this week the Ukrainian, Russian, French and German presidential advisers will meet again after several months of complete blockage. Only, the issues of the moment are no longer just the settlement of the Donbass conflict, where the situation is otherwise very calm, but avoiding a major diplomatic slippage and the risk of a conventional war between two States.
On the side of Moscow, it is difficult to take the Europeans seriously
On the website of an independent television channel, the Franco-German initiative is thus analyzed as the sign of a public division between the members of NATO. Even on the official side, the Kremlin spokesperson’s comment can be summed up in a few words: Let’s wait to see the meeting “, relates our correspondent in Moscow, Anissa El Jabri.
This is an unsurprising reaction as Russia finds it very difficult to see the Europeans as serious interlocutors and often lets it be known. The interlocutor that really interests the Kremlin is the United States. It is even quite simply one of the stakes of this crisis: Vladimir Putin is also seeking for his country a recognized status of great power;
The Russians have no mind at all in a conflict: the media, especially the state media, can constantly bring up the subject, only 39% believe in an upcoming war in the latest opinion poll.
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