Macron Tries to Avert a European War and Reshape European Security
- Macron Tries to Avert a European War and Reshape European Security
by Roger Cohen and The French president’s shuttle diplomacy this week in Moscow and Kyiv will be a delicate exercise, given European reservations and American resolve.
–
PARIS — The standoff with Russia over Ukraine enters a critical phase this week. The United States has snapped NATO to attention and moved forces east. Moscow has readied still more forces on the Ukraine border. But beneath those tensions, diplomatic avenues are being feverishly explored and the outlines of potential solutions, still amorphous, may be taking form.
–
President Biden meets Monday with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, at the same time, will visit his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, in Moscow before traveling to Kyiv.
–
With the Biden administration staking out a hard line, Germany lying low and Mr. Putin seemingly determined to force a solution to Russia’s security grievances, it is Mr. Macron who has positioned himself at the center of the diplomacy in Europe. To Moscow, he is a “quality interlocutor,” as Mr. Putin called Mr. Macron, according to a senior official in the French presidency, speaking on the condition of anonymity in keeping with French government practice.
–
read more.
end