Vladimir Putin "said very clearly that he did not want confrontation and that he wants to pursue negotiations in the Normandy framework", a source at the Élysée said on Friday after French president Emmanuel Macron talked to the Russian leader for more than an hour on the telephone.
Putin "denied having aggressive intentions" and said he wanted the full implementation of the Minsk accords on peace in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
"Dialogue with Russia is not a gamble. It is a necessity," the source continued. "The conversation between the two presidents confirmed the credibility of dialogue in this period of tension. They agreed on the necessity of de-escalation."
The Normandy Format comprises France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, with separatists from the Donbas participating in working groups. It was established in 2014 and had been frozen for two years. Macron resurrected it this week as a means of addressing the broader Ukraine crisis.
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Macron was scheduled to talk to the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday night. The French president will travel to Ukraine “when it will be useful to obtain de-escalation”.
Less than three months before the French presidential election, Macron’s self-appointed role as peacemaker between Putin and the West may demonstrate an international stature that eludes his conservative and far right-wing challengers.
Wild beasts
With the exception of the European Covid vaccination programme and economic recovery fund, Macron's foreign policy initiatives have not met with success. He tried and failed to tame the wild beasts of world politics, from Lebanese leaders to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
From the outset, Putin has regarded Macron’s attempts to wield carrot and stick with an aloof, cold eye. Soon after his election, Macron received Putin like a czar in Versailles. Russia was suspected of having hacked into Macron’s campaign emails. Sputnik and Russia Today, which are close to the Kremlin, had spread rumours about Macron’s private life. Standing alongside Putin, Macron denounced them as “agents of influence and lying propaganda”.
At the French president's summer residence at Brégançon in August 2019, Macron called for a "strategic dialogue" with Russia, saying that Europe needed to "reinvent an architecture of security and confidence between the EU and Russia". The following day, Putin's opponent Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent. A week later, Macron told incredulous French ambassadors that they must set aside their mistrust of Russia.
Macron’s overtures to Putin angered France’s partners in central and eastern Europe. They objected to his call in the EU parliament on January 19th for a “new order of security and stability” in Europe, because it seemed to resemble Putin’s demands.
Ambition
The Élysée source on Friday reiterated Macron’s ambition for “a new, inclusive security order which takes account of European sovereignty, involves dialogue with Russia and contributes to European stability”.
He said Macron’s role in the Ukraine crisis strengthens moves towards European defence. “President Biden invited the representative of European institutions [to a video conference on Monday] at our request. We believe the impetus we are giving to Europe is well understood.”
Despite Macron's efforts, Putin has continued to support the Syrian regime. Russia foments anti-French propaganda in Africa, and Russian mercenaries have moved into Mali and other African countries which France considers its sphere of influence.
At a press conference with German chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Tuesday, Macron appeared to have taken the measure of Putin. "Russia is becoming a force for instability in the Caucasus, on the borders of Europe and in other regions," the French president said.