By Enyichukwu Enemanna
French President Emmanuel Macron has been criticised for his statement on Saturday in which he urged the West to address Russia’s need for security guarantees to end the 10-month war in Ukraine.
In an interview with French TV station TF1 recorded during his state visit to the US last week, Macron said Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture.
“This means that one of the essential points we must address — as President (Vladimir) Putin has always said — is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said.
“That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table,” Macron said.
Critics, including Lithuania’s former minister of defence and foreign affairs, Linas Linkevicius, blasted the idea that concessions should be made to the Kremlin as advanced by Macron.
“Russia has all security guarantees if it doesn’t attack, annex or occupy its neighbours,” Linkevicius said on Twitter Sunday.
“If anyone wants to create a new security architecture that allows a terrorist state to continue its methods of intimidation, they should think again, it will (not) fly.”
Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak while reacting on Twitter on Sunday pondered whether “the civilised world needs ‘security guarantees’ from barbaric intentions of post-Putin Russia”.
“It will be possible only after the tribunal, the conviction of war authors and war criminals, imposition of large-scale reparations and bloody clarification of (Russian elites on) ‘who is the one to blame,'” Podolyak explained.
Russia and the US have both said they are open to talks in principle, though President Joe Biden said he would only talk to Putin if the Kremlin chief showed he was interested in ending the war.
Ukraine says negotiations are possible only if Russia stops attacking and pulls out its troops.
