PARIS (AP) – French and German leaders are demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops recently on the border with Ukraine, the German chancellor’s office said on Friday after the two heads of state held security talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy met in Paris on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined them by teleconference. The Ukrainian president is trying to support the European Union and NATO amid growing tensions between his country and neighboring Russia.
Merkel’s office said the three discussed “the security situation along the Ukrainian-Russian border, as well as in eastern Ukraine. They shared their concerns about the accumulation of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine … They demanded the withdrawal of these reinforcements of the troops, so that a situation could be postponed. ”
Macron and Merkel stressed their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to French and German officials.
Talks are taking place as Ukraine and the West sounded the alarm in recent weeks about the concentration of troops along Russia’s western border, a buildup that the US and NATO have described as the largest there since 2014. Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists have been fighting in eastern Ukraine for seven years.
“We hope that President Zelenskyy’s visit will give a new impetus” to negotiations with both Russia and Ukraine and, ultimately, to a political solution to the conflict, a French official told the French presidency, speaking on condition of anonymity. after the meeting.
“We are trying to understand the positions and tensions and see how we can discover the narrow paths between (different) points of view,” the official said.
France and Germany, which helped mediate a peace deal signed in February 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk, are working to prepare for more talks involving the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.
Their last meeting, which took place in Paris in December 2019, helped calm tensions, but failed to make any progress on a political resolution to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Zelenskyy called on France and Germany to act. “They always support our integrity, our sovereignty … But I said very directly and very honestly that now we have to move very fast,” the Ukrainian leader told a news conference.
“I don’t think it’s just our problem, it’s about Europe’s security,” Zelenskyy said.
Commenting on a possible meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian Vladimir Putin, Zelenskyy said: “When there is a dialogue, the canons are silent.”
“I think it could help solve some problems … When such important countries do not speak, others suffer,” he added.
In a call with Putin this week, Biden expressed concern about Russia’s build-up and called on Russia to disqualify tensions. The Biden administration on Thursday put pressure on Russia, announcing a series of new sanctions.
More than 14,000 people have died in fighting in eastern Ukraine, which erupted after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula. Violations of a shaky truce have become more common in recent weeks.
The Kremlin said it hoped Macron and Merkel would persuade Zelenskyy to abide by the ceasefire agreement and implement a 2015 peace agreement for eastern Ukraine, which was signed in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
The Kremlin expects French and German leaders to “use their influence and convey the need to resolutely stop any provocative action along the line of control and to emphasize the importance of unconditional observation of the ceasefire,” said Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman. Putin’s word. Friday.
General Victor Hanushchyak, deputy commander of the Ukrainian joint forces operation in the east of the country, said the likely goal of Russia’s recent actions was to “intensify efforts to prevent the reintegration of temporarily occupied territories” under separatist control.
Despite what he described as a bomb raised along the front line and a military build-up on the Russian-backed side, Hanushchyak said “there were no signs of direct enemy preparedness for active offensive action.”
In the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, near the border with the separatist-controlled territory, Vitaly Barabash, head of the local civil-military administration, told the AP on Friday that “people hear fire, don’t pass, people are a little scared … but don’t panic. ”
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AP Dmytro journalists from Avdiivka, Ukraine and Frank Jordans from Berlin, Germany contributed to the story.