“Peace is possible” in Ukraine when Ukrainians “solve it,” Emmanuel Macron said Sunday at the opening of a peace summit in Rome, AFP reports.

“At some point, depending on how events will develop and when the Ukrainian people and their leaders decide, on the terms they decide, peace will be built with another, who is today’s enemy, at the table,” the French president said. in a speech at the opening of the summit organized by the Italian Catholic community of Sant’Egidio.

“Peace is possible, which they (Ukrainians) will decide when they decide,” he insisted.

Although he supports Ukraine diplomatically and militarily, since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in February, the French head of state has pledged to continue talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, unlike other Western leaders and especially US President Joe Biden.

On Friday in Brussels, he again begged Kyiv and Moscow to return to the negotiating table when it would be “acceptable” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but also “as soon as possible.”

That position has sometimes been criticized, and Emmanuel Macron used a speech on Sunday to justify it to hundreds of political and religious leaders from around the world gathered for the three-day forum.

“Talking about peace and calling for peace today can be unbearable for those who are fighting for their freedom, and it makes them feel that they have somehow been betrayed,” the French president admitted.

But he insisted that one must have the “courage” to “desire peace”, even if imagining peace during war is “the most unthinkable of things”.

However, he believed that neither peace should be “captured by Russian power”, nor “sanctification of the law of the stronger”, “nor a ceasefire that would sanctify the state of affairs”.

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