France and Germany support Ukraine and Putin can wait

ODESA, Ukraine – It was late, almost four months after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but when the leaders of the three largest EU nations finally traveled to Kiev, their intent was clear:

dispels any doubts that he faltered in supporting Ukraine’s quest for sovereignty, territorial integrity, freedom and belonging to what German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called “the European family“.

The calm, which seemed undiluted by any pressure on Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow, was emphatic.

The determination to put an end to any hints pacification of the indiscriminate aggression of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, seemed fundamental.

Last month’s insistence by French President Emmanuel Macron on the importance of never giving in to “the temptation of humiliation” towards Russia angered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said the French president should not seek “a departure for Russia “.

On Thursday in Kiev, Macron took a turn and expressed a effusive support to the Ukrainian cause.

“Want everything is possible so that Ukraine can choose its fate, “he said.

However, the question remained as to how a war that has strained the world economy, with soaring inflation and looming food shortages, would ever end.

It is almost certain that the fact that European leaders have avoided openly exhorting Zelensky to negotiate with Putin does not mean that they have given up their strong propensity to favor diplomacy and avoid, at all costs, an escalation of the war.

In the short term, Europe and its leaders need peace to avoid a downward economic spiral.

Rising energy prices areget angry to the voters.

But in the long run, Europe needs the affirmation of the values ​​of freedom and peace that have served it well since 1945 and that have been cemented by NATO and the EU.

Leaders on Thursday pledged to this vision, and Ukraine’s role in it.

“Today it is clear that the security of the European continent as a whole is at stake on Ukrainian soil,” Macron said.

“Europe is by your side And it will continue to last as long as necessary “.

This was a different tone from Macron.

Tension had flared between Zelensky and his French and German counterparts over issues including the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine and Macron and Scholz’s willingness to keep diplomatic channels open to Putin.

Ahead of Thursday’s visit, Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, told German newspaper Bild that he was concerned that European leaders would come to Kiev saying:

“We must end the war that is causing food problems” and “We must save Putin’s face”.

If there were such thoughts, and the economic problems caused by the war are increasing day by day for troubled European leaders, they have not found public expression.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who accompanied the German and French leaders, said:

“Today the most important message of this visit is that Italy wants Ukraine to join the European Union”.

This process will take time, but the expression of support for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, echoed by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, fourth member of the delegation, has been the most unambiguous seen so far.

He suggested that European leaders would formalize Ukraine’s status as a candidate for union membership.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Ukraine should live!” Scholz said, using the Ukrainian expression for Ukraine’s victory, “Slava Ukraini”.

For a leader who was cautious in expressions of support, he was a passionate statement.

“Germany cannot and does not want to be seen as the party that led NATO to war,” said Uwe Jun, a political scientist at the University of Trier, explaining Scholz’s carefully calibrated approach to Kiev in recent months.

Ukraine’s belief that its future security and prosperity lies in Europe has been intolerable for many years with Putin, who believes that Ukraine’s fate, if it indeed has one as a nation, Russia decides.

The brutality of the Russian invasion only doubled Ukraine’s determination to look west, not east, to ensure its development, one of the many ways the Russian leader’s reckless gamble appears to reinforce the results themselves, such as a ‘ galvanized NATO alliance. , which he had tried to undermine.

“Over the past two decades we have moved in opposite directions:

Ukraine to civilization in the West and Russia to the past, the Soviet past, “said Petro Obukhov, a member of the Odessa city council, who is campaigning to remove the street names associated with Russia, who founded the city ​​during the reign of Catherine the Great.

“We separated”.

Several European leaders, in addition to the US Secretaries of State and Defense, preceded Macron and Scholz in Kiev.

The apparent reluctance of French and German leaders to come had intensified skepticism in the Ukrainian capital about their intentions, especially since the Minsk 1 and Minsk 2, negotiated by Paris and Berlin in an attempt to end the separatist war instigated by Russia in the east.

Ukraine, which started in 2014, had been so ineffective.

The last thing Ukraine wants is what is sometimes derisively called “Minsk 3”, a contrived ceasefire based on mutual concessions that are never implemented, leaving Putin on Ukrainian soil with the ability to enforce more. brute force when you want it. .

Russia poured out contempt for the visit. Dmitry Medvedevformer president and now vice president of the Security Council said:

“European connoisseurs of frogs, liver and pasta love to visit kiev. Earnings are zero “.

This crude invective, by a Russian politician once considered more moderate and more pro-European than his teacher Putin, indicated how hard the confrontation between Russia and the West has become and how elusive peace can prove to be.

Earlier this week, Medvedev suggested, with smug contempt, that within two years Ukraine may not exist.

Macron has placed great emphasis in recent months on the need to continue to dialogue with Putin’s Russia, a great power which, according to him, it will threaten European stability as long as it is not integrated into a new security architecture.

This caused concern in Ukraine.

Referring to Ukraine’s accession to the EU, Macron said last month:

“We all know perfectly well that the admission process would take several years and, in fact, no doubt, several decades.”

While the process is expected to take years to come, on Thursday in Kiev there was talk of speeding it up, not the need for Ukrainian patience.

The Russian invasion was “premeditated, deliberate, unwarranted and unjustifiable,” Macron said.

He announced that France would deliver six Caesar long-range self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, adding to the 12 already delivered.

The Caesars are prized for theirs precision.

The issue of arms deliveries to Ukraine plagued Scholz and led to a dispute in March that resulted in German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier not being invited to Ukraine.

Since then, tensions have eased, but Scholz remains under pressure from some members of his Social Democratic Party. avoid sending too many heavy weapons.

The foreign minister was visibly moved on a visit to the devastated suburb of Irpin in Kiev.

“It’s worse when you see how terribly senseless the violence is,” he said of what he called a “Russian war of aggression.”

It was unclear whether the experience would change German politics.

But it seems unlikely that tensions between Germany and Ukraine over the extent of German support will ever dissipate completely.

Postwar Germany’s embrace of freedom is matched only by his own horror of war

Any solution to the crisis that left millions of tons of Ukrainian wheat rotting in silos on the Black Sea coast also seemed a long way off.

Macron raised the issue, blaming the “world food crisis” on “Russian aggression”.

Russia, of course, blames Ukraine, another example of the worsening of the impasse in the conflict.

Reports were provided by Andrew E. Kramer of Kiev, Ukraine; Erika Sommer from Berlin; Aurelien Breeden of Paris; and Jason Horowitz and Gaia Pianigiani of Rome.

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