Under Fire for Calling Putin Before, Macron Says He Will Do So Again

Although speaking to Vladimir Putin has proved fruitless in terms of ending the Ukraine war in the past, Emmanuel Macron is going to give it another go. The French president announced on Wednesday that he will be in “direct contact” with his Russian counterpart in the coming days. French media report that the communication, presumably by phone, will focus on the issue of civilian nuclear power in Ukraine and the country’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which Moscow and Kyiv accuse each other of having attacked. Mr. Macron told reporters at Paris that he plans to speak with the Russian president following an exchange with the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi. So the communication between Paris and Moscow, at least as advertised, will be important but limited in scope. That may be deliberate on the part of Mr. Macron, who has learned the hard way that overselling his influence with the Kremlin comes at a political cost. Early on in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and to the consternation of many at Kyiv — Mr. Macron phoned Mr. Putin several times. And as recently as August, the French leader phoned Mr. Putin again, reportedly about the safety risks stemming from the extension of hostilities to the Zaporizhia plant. Against that nebulous backdrop any attempt by Paris to press the Kremlin on a complete withdrawal of its forces from Ukraine will probably not be forthcoming any time soon. As if to underscore how ineffectual, albeit well-meaning, French diplomacy has been thus far, Boris Johnson delivered a sharp rebuke to Mr. Macron. The former British prime minister told CNN, “Be in no doubt that the French were in denial right up until the last moment.” Mr. Johnson dished out criticisms of Germany and Italy, too, for their initially flimsy foreign policy postures, but in the case of France it is worth recalling that Mr. Macron himself seems to have acknowledged some of Paris’s shortcomings on Ukraine. In March, for example, he fired the head of the French military intelligence agency for failing to accurately assess the likelihood that Russia would send troops into Ukraine, despite ample warning from Washington. Mr. Macron has always been a proponent of dialogue with Moscow, and in recent weeks there has even been some high-level communication between Washington and the Kremlin, chiefly with respect to addressing the need to avoid nuclear escalation as the war in Ukraine lurches into its ninth full month. In the meantime, however, Ukraine is reeling from ongoing Russian attacks on critical electricity infrastructure that has seen vast swaths of Kyiv and other cities plunged into cold and darkness. The Kyiv Independent reported today that following a new wave of Russian missile strikes, the state grid operator Ukrenergo said that emergency blackouts were introduced in all Ukrainian regions and that all nuclear power plants have been shut down temporarily. The Ukrainian nuclear power operator, Energoatom, said that Russian strikes had caused power outages that preceded the shutdowns.The attacks Wednesday were the fifth large-scale air strike targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the past two months, the newspaper reported, and the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland, has reportedly been left entirely without electricity. Exactly what kind of pressure Mr. Macron can bring to bear on Mr. Putin, if any, to alleviate the human suffering in Ukraine as winter fast approaches is not clear. He announced his intentions to resume communication at a conference of French mayors at which a true master of communication, President Zelensky, had a message of his own to deliver, via video. Said Ukraine’s leader to the French, “The Kremlin wants to transform the cold of winter into a weapon of mass destruction.”Regardless of whether renewed communication with Mr. Putin will have any tangible impact, France is angling for better optics with respect to support for Ukraine, beyond the limited provision of armaments. Mr. Macron said that next month the country will host a parley at Paris “for Ukrainian resistance and resilience.” He provided no details, but it is worth noting that a delegation of Ukrainian mayors was reportedly present at today’s conference in France. When Messrs. Macron and Putin get on the phone again, there will unfortunately still be much to discuss.

Under Fire for Calling Putin Before, Macron Says He Will Do So Again

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