The world in question
Should we keep talking to Vladimir Putin?
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches French President Emmanuel Macron arrive for a news conference after their talks, in Moscow, Russia February 7, 2022. © Thibault Camus/Pool via REUTERS
By: Bruno Daroux Follow
3 mins
A look back at France's position since the start and even before the start of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, in particular vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin, with whom President Macron spoke at length, and several times occasions.
Is the French president right to continue the dialogue with his Russian counterpart?
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The answer is not evident.
Since tensions have increased between Moscow and the West, even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron has wanted to maintain a link with the Russian leader.
It is for him to do everything to bring Putin back into the circle of reason, to talk to him to make him hear a voice other than his own and that of frightened advisers who dare not contradict him.
In short, put him face to face with the reality of the outside world.
It is clear, almost three months after the start of the Russian aggression, that the Macron method has not shaken the master of the Kremlin in the least in his desire to achieve his objectives in Ukraine.
And so the question arises: is this method useful?
In the long run, and in the absence of tangible results, does it not have more faults than advantages?
Because the criticisms against the French strategy are beginning to be heard seriously.
In France, Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
In France, the president's opponents denounce a policy which, in the end, places the country in a delicate, even humiliating situation.
Paris cannot serve as a foil to a dictator whose troops commit war crimes.
By maintaining contact, France allows Putin to show that he is not a pariah state, isolated on the international scene.
In Ukraine, President Zelensky is also beginning to judge Macron's approach to be both ineffective and dangerous.
Finally, in Eastern Europe, France is criticized, but also Germany.
Two countries which, for different reasons, would have a naive or cowardly view of how to negotiate with a leader like Vladimir Putin.
For those countries that have known the Soviet yoke, Putin understands only force.
And since he has decided to start hostilities, and also to prevent what happens to Ukraine from happening to others in Europe, we must also wage war on him through the Ukrainians interposed by delivering to kyiv the military means not only to defend themselves, but even to defeat the Red Army.
Clearly, it is no longer time to dialogue with a leader like Putin.
In Paris, we are beginning to hear these criticisms – the tone is harsher these days – and we are announcing new arms deliveries to kyiv.
But we also want to remind you that one day we will have to get out of this conflict, negotiate a political solution with Moscow, and that Russia geographically will remain very close to Europe.
So we have to look at the longer term.
“
Maybe
”, answer the most skeptical of this vision.
But, before negotiating, you must first beat the Russian president.
In both cases, it's called a bet.
© RFI
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