As the Battle of Ukraine Rages, What Are Macron and Putin Up To?

ZURICH — “Mr. President, the Kremlin is on the line.” The secure telephone line between Paris and Moscow has been activated 15 times since December. In Paris, the same protocol is followed each time: At the appointed hour, President Macron and five of his advisors descend on the Salon Doré, the Golden Room, in the Palais de l’Élysée. The secure line is opened, and the exchange begins.In Paris, it is the same two translators who take turns. Their job is to ensure the fluidity of conversation — its precision. At times, Mr. Macron allows himself to greet President Putin in Russian. There is a familiarity to the exchange, even if the subject matter is tense.Like his predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, Mr. Macron has spent much of his presidency courting the Russian strongman. On Mr. Macron’s accession to the presidency in 2017, Mr. Putin was the first foreign head of state to be invited to the Palace of Versailles.A year later, in the hallways of the Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg, Mr. Macron urged the Kremlin to turn to Europe. “Russia is an inalienable part of Europe,” Mr. Macron said. He has long believed that Russia is European and must be anchored in the continent — even if Russia appears to believe otherwise. In 2019 Mr. Macron initiated a “strategic dialogue” with Moscow. During the annual conference of French ambassadors — and in front of unbelieving diplomats — he chastised those who opposed his “Russian reset” and entreated them to change course. Moscow should be brought closer to Europe, Mr. Macron insisted, with France acting as the “balancing power.”President Macron echoed similar sentiments this week. “It is impossible to build lasting peace if Russia doesn’t participate in building a comprehensive architecture on our continent,” he said at a re-election rally in Paris on Tuesday. “It is necessary to continue dialogue … because eventually there will be a return to the negotiating table.”Unlike Messrs. Sarkozy and Hollande, who eventually gave up on their courtships of the Kremlin, Mr. Macron appears to persist, even as Mr. Putin has in Europe waged the biggest war and unleashed the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II.This makes Mr. Macron’s many exchanges with Mr. Putin quite curious. What, indeed, are they talking about? Mr. Macron’s history with the Kremlin also seems to suggest that his persistence involves more than mere electoral politics. But then, what?For the past two days, Mr. Macron has been meeting at Versailles with European leaders that France convened for a special summit to discuss Europe’s future amid the current crisis. The choice of location is significant, if not ironic. For the Treaty of Versailles, which in 1919 brought an end to World War I, is by some historians seen as having sown the seeds of World War II.This morning, European leaders pledged to support Kyiv in “pursuing its European path.” They stopped short of fast-tracking its integration into the bloc. On the summit agenda, too, are fresh sanctions against Russia and a proposal for a common European borrowing — directed to states as fiscal transfers — to facilitate investments in energy independence and boost interoperability between the region’s national defense forces. Since the war began, Mr. Macron has become more assertive in his calls for a European army, and a Europe capable of acting independently of America and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In conversation with Britain’s Telegraph, Mr. Macron said his aim is to “strengthen the European pillar inside NATO” in a “complementary way.”What this means is not yet entirely clear. Not clear, too, is whether such an arrangement could have the opposite effect of dividing NATO and further weakening Europe. Such concerns are voiced by the Baltic states, which have consistently opposed the idea.Hours before the start of the summit in Versailles, Mr. Macron, together with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, held a telephone exchange with Mr. Putin. Messrs. Macron and Scholz demanded an immediate ceasing of the hostilities and insisted on a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The three heads of state agreed to remain in close contact. Also being kept in close proximity is Xi Jinping. On Tuesday, President Macron and Chancellor Scholz spoke with President Xi. Deliberated, again, was a diplomatic solution for the war in Ukraine and strengthened ties between Europe and Communist China. According to the Élysée, an agreement with Iran was also discussed.On separate occasions Messrs. Macron, Scholz, Putin, and Xi have all called for the dawn of a new era and a new global architecture. Presumably all do not have the same arrangement in mind. Yet Mr. Macron’s insistence on Russia’s European-ness and its and China’s participation in the European project suggest that perhaps at least some contours of this yet-to-be-defined new order are being sketched in the exchanges.It is, of course, difficult to know for sure. Yet with time, perhaps, we may discover the dialogue that follows the summons — “Mr. President, the Kremlin is on the line.”

As the Battle of Ukraine Rages, What Are Macron and Putin Up To?

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