“I said: Emmanuel, we don’t believe it.” On Friday May 17, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected, in an interview with AFP, the suggestion of a “truce” in the war with Russia for the duration of the Paris Olympic Games. A desire expressed by French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Let’s imagine for a second that there is a ceasefire. First, we don’t trust Vladimir Putin, said Volodymyr Zelensky. Second, he is not going to withdraw his troops. Third, […] tell me Emmanuel, I said, who guarantees that Russia will not take advantage of this to bring its troops to our territory?”
“We are not against a truce, we are not against the end of the war. But we want a just end to this war. And we are against a truce which would play into the hands of the enemy,” he said. he adds.
No desire for a truce on the Russian side either
A few hours earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, traveling in China, had implied that he was opposed to an Olympic truce because his country was banned from the Olympics because of its invasion of Ukraine. “International sports officials are today violating the principles of the Olympic Charter […] towards Russia by preventing our athletes from participating in the Olympics under their flag, with their national anthem, but they want us to comply with the rules they impose on us,” he declared.
“To demand something from others, you have to respect the rules yourself,” he concluded. On the other hand, the Russian president declared that he did not believe in these principles of an Olympic truce. “They are very fair […] But few countries have respected it in history, with the exception of ancient Greece,” he told the Russian press.
Emmanuel Macron assured that he wanted to “do everything” to have an Olympic truce across the world during the Olympics. He said that President Xi Jinping had given him his support in early May. However, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin did not publicly raise the subject on Thursday during their meeting in Beijing.