Parallel talks on opposite sides of the Atlantic over the Ukraine crisis underscored the challenges in reaching a diplomatic resolution to the standoff, with Russian President Vladimir Putin again accusing the West of stoking tensions that could provoke a war, as President Biden pledged to stop a controversial gas pipeline project in the event of a renewed Kremlin invasion.
Emerging from a five-hour meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow around midnight Monday, Putin said that there would be “no winners” if war broke out between NATO and Russia.
In Washington, President Biden upped the ante following talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, declaring that the Nord Stream 2 project designed to send gas from Russia to Germany would be abandoned if Moscow again sends forces into Ukraine.
Macron, who has long pushed for a European foreign policy that is more independent of Washington, has spoken regularly by phone with Putin in recent weeks. He agreed to speak again with his Russian counterpart following his Tuesday visit to Kyiv, where he is set to discuss Moscow’s demands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Scholz is set to travel to Kyiv on Feb. 14 and to Moscow a day later.
In a news conference following Monday’s one-on-one at the Kremlin, Macron called the coming days “decisive.”The crisis meetings come after U.S. officials warned over the weekend that a full-scale Russian invasion could leave as many as 50,000 civilians dead or injured.
“We are in a situation of extreme tension, a degree of incandescence that Europe has rarely known in the past decades,” he said.
Paris put forward proposals that may lead to joint steps toward de-escalation of the crisis, Putin said, without elaborating. But he said these were “probably still too early to talk about.” He also said there was room for some discussion with Washington and NATO on Russia’s demands, but only on matters of secondary importance to Moscow.
Russia has demanded that Ukraine, which Putin sees as part of the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, be permanently prevented from joining the Western military alliance. Moscow also views the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe as an existential threat. “It’s not us moving toward NATO,” Putin said overnight. “It’s NATO moving toward us.”
Putin has massed more than 100,000 troops and equipment near Ukraine’s border — potentially positioning for what could become the largest military land offensive in Europe since World War II.
The same day, Biden hosted Scholz at the White House as Western allies attempt to present a unified front in the crisis. Scholz has faced criticism at home and abroad that he hasn’t been doing enough to address the crisis, supplying Kyiv with helmets as other NATO allies send troops and military equipment. The German leader said Monday that his country was “absolutely united” with the United States and other NATO allies and “we will not be taking different steps.”