Moscow, Feb 8 : There is still an opportunity to find a peaceful path for Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron said. “Now we all must find a peaceful path in Europe and a path of stability in Europe, now there is still an opportunity and time for this,” Macron said during a press conference following a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He said new solutions on security in Europe may be innovative, adding that Russia and the EU should agree on specific measures to stabilize the situation, and that Russia and Europe should work jointly on security guarantees. Macron said France and Russia have some points of contact, and noted that he and Putin managed to find where their positions on Ukraine are similar. He said Russia and the EU should settle the conflict in Ukraine.
Macron said he will have an opportunity to talk to Putin by phone on Ukraine soon. “We will have the opportunity in the coming days to once again talk on the phone on the issue of Ukraine and our collective security. We want to build a framework of trust that would allow us to move forward,” he said. Macron also said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was nervous about Russian troops on the border with Ukraine. The French president said he was concerned about the words of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in Belarus again, but noted that during talks in Moscow, Putin reassured him otherwise. “I’m worried about the call [made] in December by Lukashenko about nuclear weapons. I want to say that President Putin reassured me in this regard,” Macron said. Lukashenko said in an interview with Sputnik in December 2021 that Belarus would offer to deploy Russian nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO made a similar step in Poland.
