In a phone call four days before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron’s offer to meet with US President Joe Biden, saying: “I do not hide you, I want to.” I’m playing ice hockey and here I am talking to you from the hall. Sport”.
This thrilling nine-minute previously unpublished interview is featured in Guy Lagash’s documentary “The President, Europe and War”, which reveals the secrets of diplomacy over the past six months in the Elysee. Broadcast on Thursday evening on the French network “France 2”.
On the morning of Sunday, February 20, the camera focused on Emmanuel Bonn, the French president’s diplomatic adviser, surrounded by three female colleagues, inside his office on the Elysee Avenue in Paris.
The French president, who visited Moscow and Kyiv a few days ago, is mediating to prevent a war.
Four members of the Elysee Diplomatic Cell remotely follow the phone call between their “boss” and the Kremlin leader.
Emmanuel Macron’s tone sounded strong, insulting and even sharp. Putin listened to him without saying a word, but his silence hid his unhappiness. “Listen to me,” Putin replied, containing polite expressions in Russian that were ironic.
The French president began the conversation without any ambiguity by saying, “I want you to give me your study of the situation first, and maybe directly, as we both usually do, tell me what you intend to do. . “
His Russian counterpart replied, “What can I say? You can see for yourself what is happening.” According to the documentary translation, he attacked the President of Ukraine and said: “In fact, our dear colleague, Mr. (President of Ukraine Volodymyr) Zelinsky, does nothing (to implement it), he is lying. On you,” with Reference to the Minsk agreement, which is supposed to bring peace to eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been active since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Putin accused Zelinsky of “wanting to acquire a nuclear weapon,” while Emmanuel Benn said, “This is nonsense.”
According to the call, the Kremlin leader accused his French counterpart of wanting to “revise the agreement” and called for attention to the separatists’ peace proposals.
“I do not know where your lawyer learned the law from, I just look at the texts and try to enforce them,” said Emmanuel Macron, protesting his colleague’s allegations.
Putin reiterated the accusation, and regretting not listening to the separatists, Macron replied firmly: “We do not care about the separatists’ proposals!” He explained that these proposals are not included in the agreement.
But the Elysee resident wanted to play the role of mediator and offered to hold a meeting that would bring all parties together, and he confirmed: “I will immediately ask Zelinsky for this.”
“The situation on the contact line is very tense, I really called on Zelensky to calm down yesterday, I tell him to calm down again, calm down on social media, calm down the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.
He called on his Russian counterpart to follow the Russian forces stationed on the border with Ukraine and warned them not to drown in any provocations in the coming hours and days.
Emmanuel Macron eventually achieved the purpose of his call, which was to persuade Vladimir Putin to accept a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Geneva in an effort to avoid escalating tensions.
Vladimir Putin did not even show much enthusiasm for the idea of setting a date, stressing that “above all, this meeting must be prepared in advance” and that Emmanuel Macron managed to get the “original agreement” from him.
The Elysee immediately announced the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin, but the meeting did not take place.
“We’re in touch right now, call me as soon as something happens,” Macron said at the end of the call.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Putin concluded in French.
Four days later, the result was bitter, Macron told Jay Lagach’s camera: “We did not convince him, he attacked Ukraine.
“I thought we could find a way with Putin through trust and dialogue,” the French president said on June 16 on his way back by train from a trip to Kyiv where he met with Volodymyr Zelinsky.
He said that with the violations of the Russian army, especially in Bucha, the stage of “irreversibility” at the “moral level” has passed, adding: “After that, I talked to him much less.”
Source: Lebanon Debate
