Like a shadow of the Cold War, one word accompanied President Emmanuel Macron's travel diplomacy on the Ukraine crisis: Finlandization.

In front of the journalists traveling with him in the Presidential Airbus, Macron avoided even uttering the term, as it stands in sharp contrast to NATO's open-door policy.

That didn't stop the news outlet Politico, part of the Springer group, from reporting that Macron was aiming to Finnishize Ukraine.

What is meant is a strict neutrality, which saved Finland from being incorporated into Stalin's Soviet Union.

Macron reacted promptly to the media disruption during his visit to Kiev: "I have never used this term." He advises against it.

Michael Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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"I stressed how problematic it would be to end the open-door policy, especially with Finland and Sweden in mind," he said.

“One should not look for a reference term.

I think we have to invent something new," he told the accompanying press.

President Zelenskyy said at the press conference that he had never heard of Finlandization.

Macron didn't make it that easy for himself.

But he pointed out that 125,000 Russian soldiers on the border did not make it any easier to develop a security concept for Ukraine.

Above all, the incident shows how mistrust the French attempt at mediation was.

Macron can claim to have brought Europe back to the negotiating table despite these adverse circumstances.

"Sudden miracles" will not exist,

Putin dictated the rules

As soon as he arrived, Vladimir Putin, dressed as a European peacemaker, indicated to his guest that he didn't want to give him anything.

When Emmanuel Macron got out of the limousine in a snowstorm in Moscow, he was escorted into the Kremlin through a side entrance by a footman.

Putin did not roll out the red carpet for the French.

He did not rush to meet him and he did not have a bouquet in hand, as he did when he arrived at the Presidential Fortress of Bregançon on the Côte d'Azur in August 2019. The magnificent reception that the newly crowned Macron gave him in May 2017 at the Royal Palace of Versailles obviously Putin didn't want to reply.

From the very first moment he made it clear to the guest in the Kremlin: I dictate the rules here.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who has not missed a presidential visit to Moscow in the past decade, was shown the door.

Macron's chief diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, also had to sit in a side room for more than five hours without an opportunity to overhear.

Right at the beginning there was a brief verbal skirmish because even Macron's exclusive photographer Soazig de la Moissonnière was turned away at the doorstep.

The French President's accompanying interpreter sat in a translation booth outside the room.

Admission was only granted to a Russian "emergency translator" should the audio system fail.

From time to time waiters in livery were allowed to push open the double doors to serve the two presidents with spinach ravioli, fish soup, sturgeon and roast reindeer.

Neither fish nor meat, that's how you could sum up the result of the long evening.

The portent of the dialogue without witnesses weighed heavily on the results.

Macron stressed in Kiev that Putin had assured him that there would be no further escalation.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov said he was not aware of any such promise.

Macron gave a detailed report to Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday evening in Berlin.

Scholz is expected in the Kremlin in a week and should know exactly where the French President has identified negotiating margins.

Scholz and Macron, alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda, made it clear to the press that nothing works without determination and unity.

"Another violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty is unacceptable and would have far-reaching consequences for Russia, politically, economically and certainly also geostrategically," warned Scholz.

Duda agreed: “The world and Europe have not seen such troop deployments since the Second World War.