In the follow-up to the discussions during President Macron’s recent visit to Moscow, the two leaders had an in-depth exchange of opinions on the issues related to ensuring long-term legal security guarantees for the Russian Federation and overcoming the stalemate in settling the intra-Ukrainian conflict, including in view of Emmanuel Macron’s conversations with the leaders of Ukraine, the United States and a number of European states.
Vladimir Putin once again drew attention to the absence of a substantive response from the United States and NATO to the Russian initiatives. He also stressed the reluctance of the leading Western powers to prompt the Kiev authorities to implement the Minsk agreements, which was demonstrated again by the futility of the February 10 round of consultations in Berlin between political advisors to the Normandy format leaders.
Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron also discussed the situation concerning provocative speculations regarding the allegedly planned Russian “invasion” of Ukraine, which is accompanied by massive supplies of modern weaponry to Ukraine, thus creating conditions for possible aggressive actions by the Ukrainian military in Donbass.
The leaders agreed to keep these issues on the agenda of the Russian-French top-level dialogue.
In addition, they touched upon the preservation of and full-fledged compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions on Iran’s nuclear programme.