File: French President Emmanuel Macron meets US president-elect Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Élysée presidential palace in Paris on December 7, 2024./ AFP) © Sarah Meyssonier, AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron said only Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could negotiate on behalf of his country with Russia to end the war, warning a “peace that is a capitulation” would be “bad news for everyone”, including the U.S., the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
“The only question at this stage is whether President Putin is genuinely, sustainably, and credibly willing to agree to a ceasefire on this basis. After that, it’s up to the Ukrainians to negotiate with Russia,” Macron said in an interview with the newspaper at the Elysee Palace.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday separately discussed the war with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy and told U.S. officials to begin talks on ending the nearly three-year-long conflict.
The phone calls came shortly after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Ukraine’s military allies in Brussels that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders – before Russia annexed Crimea – was unrealistic and that the U.S. does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution.
Ukrainians on Thursday worried that Trump was preparing to sell out their country following his phone call Putin.
Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, said Ukraine would have a seat at the table during any peace negotiations with Russia over ending the war.
Macron told the Financial Times that Trump had created a “window of opportunity” for a negotiated solution, where “everyone has to play their role”, adding that it is now up to Zelenskiy to discuss territorial and sovereignty issues.
He said “..it is up to the international community, with a specific role for the Europeans, to discuss security guarantees and, more broadly, the security framework for the entire region. That is where we have a role to play.”
Macron described Trump’s return as an “electroshock” that should force Europe to secure its own future as well as Ukraine’s, the Financial Times report added.
Separately, Macron said to the newspaper that expelling Gazans would be “extremely dangerous”, adding that Trump’s designs on Gaza and Greenland were examples of the “extreme strategic uncertainty” the world was now living in.
The commentary is aimed at Trump’s shock announcement that the U.S. intends to remove Gaza residents and transform the war-ravaged territory into what the president billed as a “Riviera of the Middle East”. He had also said he wants to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland.
Macron reiterated that Europe should build its defence capabilities so it can act even when the U.S. is not involved.
“We must also develop a fully integrated European defence, industrial and technological base,” Macron said.
In January, at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris, Macron said: “After the inauguration of a new administration in the United States, it is necessary more than ever for Europeans and for our two (France and Germany) countries to play their role of consolidating a united, strong and sovereign Europe.”
Sell out ?
In a related development US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that it is “unrealistic” to aim for a return to Ukraine’s borders as they were before 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists who took over swaths of the country’s east.
The remarks are the clearest indication yet that the United States will support negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in which Ukraine cedes territory that’s already been seized by the Kremlin.
“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine,” Hegseth said in a speech during a trip to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. “But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.”
Illusionary goal
“Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he told a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, at which Western allies discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion. “We will only end this devastating war — and establish a durable peace — by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.”
Hegseth’s remarks put meat on the bone of Trump’s radical departure from former President Joe Biden’s policy. Whereas Biden focused on all-out Ukrainian victory, Trump says he wants to end the war as quickly as possible.
Trump’s subservience to Putin ?
File photo: President Trump’s ‘subservience’ to Putin is ‘humiliating’ to the US, President Elect Joe Biden said on August 22, 2020 during his campaign “Never before has an American president played such a subservient role to a Russian leader,” then the Democratic presidential candidate said. Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset over 40 years and proved so willing to parrot anti-western propaganda that there were celebrations in Moscow, a former KGB spy has told the Guardian newspaper
Trump’s actions over Ukraine and his anti-Europe stand raise the unsettling question: Is Trump actively working to dismantle the Western order at the behest of his Russian counterpart? Given his history of praising Putin and other authoritarian leaders, his actions suggest a broader strategy that serves to strengthen Russia while destabilizing Western economic and geopolitical power. The recent revelations from FBI Director Robert Mueller’s testimony on July 25, 2019,
Mueller’s Testimony and the Blackmail Question
The most revealing portion of Mueller’s six-hour testimony before the House came in the final exchanges of the day. In those crucial ten minutes, Mueller confirmed that Russia had blackmail leverage over Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. While the Mueller report was a criminal investigation rather than a counterintelligence probe, this statement raised serious national security concerns. If Russia indeed held compromising material over Trump, could this explain his consistently pro-Kremlin policies? further reinforce these suspicions.
Reuters / YL