Macron’s Envoy Traveled to Moscow For Rare Meetings With Russia

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(Bloomberg) — French President Emmanuel Macron’s top diplomat traveled to Moscow earlier this week to hold a series of rare face-to-face meetings with Russian officials as Europe seeks closer involvement in Ukraine peace talks.  

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The trip by Emmanuel Bonne, a long-time close confidant of Macron, took place on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter. It included a meeting with Yuri Ushakov, top foreign policy aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the people said speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the visit publicly.  

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The trip was first reported by French magazine l’Express.

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Macron has argued in recent months that Europe must find a way to directly engage with Moscow as US President Donald Trump is pushing ahead with efforts to end the war in Ukraine after almost four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Europe isn’t talking part in peace talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine that are currently taking place in Abu Dhabi.

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Asked about Bonne’s visit, the French presidency neither confirmed nor denied it, deferring to Macron comments from Tuesday, when the president said he was preparing to resume dialogue with Putin.

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“It’s being prepared,” Macron said on the sidelines of a meeting with farmers in northeastern France. “Discussions are taking place at a technical level.” 

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The purpose of Bonne’s trip to Moscow was to impress on Russians that Europeans have to be involved in any decisions concerning European security and that they won’t just rubber-stamp any deal to end the war, the people familiar said. The discussions may happen again in the near future, they said. 

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Prospects for a war settlement gained some momentum after the US and Ukraine’s allies converged in January toward an agreement to offer security guarantees long sought by Kyiv during a meeting in Paris. But any peace deal has since remained elusive.  

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Putin continues to press his maximalist demands, which include taking control of the territories in the eastern Donbas region that his forces have sought and failed to seize since the start of hostilities more than a decade ago. Russia has also opposed NATO troops being stationed in Ukraine to secure any potential ceasefire.

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Ahead of the latest round of talks in the the United Arab Emirates, Trump said Putin agreed to his request for a weeklong moratorium on strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure because of the freezing winter conditions. In return, Kyiv said it would hold back from attacks targeting Russian oil refineries and other facilities.

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But Russia resumed air strikes on Tuesday with the biggest assault this year. Zelenskiy said the attack will have consequences for Kyiv’s negotiating team in this week’s peace talks. 

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The head of Ukraine’s delegation, Rustem Umerov, said in a social media post on Wednesday that the trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi was “meaningful and productive,” with the negotiation process now continuing in a working-group format. 

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