Biden and Macron want to “verify” the withdrawal of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine | International

The presidents of the United States, Joe Biden, and France, Emmanuel Macron, consider Moscow’s announcement that it will begin to withdraw Russian troops stationed for months along the border with Ukraine an “encouraging sign”. However, in an hour-long telephone conversation, both agreed on the need to be “cautious” and, above all, to be able to “verify” Russian claims in a situation that remains very “fragile,” he said. this Tuesday the Elysee.

“The challenge today is to evaluate the quality of the Russian announcements about the end of certain military maneuvers,” sources from the French presidency explained after the new telephone interview of the leaders, who had last spoken last Saturday. The frequent talks – four since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis – are due to the will of Washington and Paris to continue “perfectly coordinated” with Moscow, according to the Elysee. Both Biden and Macron agreed that “the Russian measures must be taken note of” but that “they must also be verified, their scope and meaning verified,” according to the French presidency.

“There are Russian announcements, there are images of a certain number of men and material on board, but there are still large-scale Russian air, naval and land military maneuvers. The Russian maneuvers have not ended (…) there is an indication, but the Russian military device is still very impressive and for confidence and calm to return, it must be clearly reduced, ”insists Paris. “Many things are possible” even in a situation that is still very “fragile”, he stresses.

Despite the “prudence” with which the two parties stress that any Russian announcement must be taken, Paris considers that the promise of troop withdrawal after the conclusion of the alleged military exercises to deploy them along the Ukrainian border comes to reaffirm Macron’s strategy just over a week after his visit to Putin in the Kremlin. Something especially important for the French president —especially two months before the presidential elections— after the Kremlin categorically denied the Elysée’s claims that Macron had managed to extract from Putin the promise that Russia “will not undertake new military initiatives”.

“The de-escalation movement is in accordance” with what Putin told Macron a week ago, the French sources affirmed, according to whom the fundamental thing is to have a “starting point”.

“We are looking for a way out of the crisis and for this we have to start somewhere. A good starting point is the reduction of the Russian military device on the borders of Ukraine (…) We do not draw any more conclusions, it is not to say that what has been announced is the way out of the crisis, that must be built and it will be gradual, ”the Elysée nuanced. . The objective, he recalled, remains, in addition to the Russian de-escalation on the Ukrainian border, “to relaunch the negotiations in the framework of the Normandy format” on Donbas and open a “more ambitious” discussion to other partners regarding security in Europe.

Paris announced that Macron will also talk this Wednesday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Although China is not currently part of the negotiations, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council it has “a particular responsibility in terms of maintaining international peace and security”, France justifies the imminent interview, in which Macron will communicate to his Chinese counterpart “the common interest in getting Russia to enter into a useful dialogue” with France and its allies.

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