French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday dismissed any controversy “where there is none” after his statements about future security guarantees for Russia were poorly received in Kyiv and in Eastern Europe, France Presse reported.

• “I don’t think it’s worth making a big deal out of it, trying to stir up controversy where it doesn’t exist.
• I have always said the same thing, that is, in the end, at the peace talks there will be territorial issues regarding Ukraine, and they belong to Ukrainians, and there will be issues of the collective security of the entire region,” Macron said after his arrival. at the EU-Balkan summit, which is held in Tirana.

• “This is the same thing that I said from the beginning, the same thing that we worked on in February, March and it was the subject of discussions,” the French president continued, referring to the efforts, especially from before – during the meeting with Vladimir Putin on February 7 in the Kremlin – to offer Russia guarantees of the presence of NATO on its borders in order to try to avoid a war in Ukraine.

On Saturday, Macron explained that he had exchanged views with US President Joe Biden on “the security architecture we want to live in tomorrow”, noting that “guarantees of Russia’s own security will have to be provided the day it returns to the negotiating table”. .

“One of the essential points is the fear that NATO is approaching its gates, that is, the deployment of weapons that can threaten Russia,” he explained then on the air of the French TV channel TF1.

The remarks drew criticism in Ukraine and some Eastern European countries, which have a hardline stance on Russia and accuse Macron of being too lenient and leaving too many doors open for Moscow.

“Does anyone want to give security guarantees to a terrorist and murderous state?” Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the NSDC, asked rhetorically on Twitter.

According to Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz, Macron is “wrong when he says what he says,” and the West should pursue Moscow’s “policy of isolation.”

“Vladimir Putin has such a mental structure that any attempt to make contact will calm him down, strengthen him psychologically,” he said in an interview with the RMF FM radio station.

Latvian Deputy Prime Minister Artis Pabriks in the Financial Times assessed that the idea of ​​providing security guarantees to Russia “means falling into the trap of Putin’s story, according to which the West and Ukraine are responsible for the war.”

The exit from the Ukrainian conflict will be carried out by providing “security guarantees to Ukraine”, the head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell said on Monday, adding that “we will talk about this for Russia later”. (Source: Agerpres)