French President Emmanuel Macron has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him in their marathon talks a day earlier that Moscow would not further escalate the Ukraine crisis. Macron’s remarks on a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday came as the Kremlin denied that he and Putin struck a deal on de-escalating the crisis. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “in the current situation, Moscow and Paris can’t be reaching any deals”. Macron met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion. Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops and military hardware near the border with Ukraine, but insists it has no plans to attack its neighbour.
The Kremlin wants guarantees from Western powers that NATO will not accept Ukraine and other former Soviet nations as members, and that the organisation will halt weapon deployments and roll back its forces from eastern Europe — demands the US and NATO reject as nonstarters. Macron said he believed steps can be taken to de-escalate the crisis and called on all sides to stay calm. Both Putin and Zelenskyy had told him they were committed to the principles of a 2014 peace agreement, he said, adding that this deal, known as the Minsk accords, offered a path to resolving their continuing disputes.
Source: aljazera.com
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
