The international community must draw “clear red lines” with Russia, said French President Emmanuel Macron, including the implementation of sanctions after any “unacceptable behavior” by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said, however, that sanctions alone were not enough.
In an interview with Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, Macron said he “fully” shares Mr Biden’s desire to open a dialogue with Russia. However, he said it was important to be clear with Putin “when we are not aligned.”
“This is the only way to be credible. I think sanctions are not enough in and of themselves, but sanctions are part of the package. I prefer a constructive dialogue, but to have a constructive and effective dialogue, you need credibility,” Macron said.
More than 30,000 Russian soldiers are gathered on the Ukrainian border, raising concerns that Russia could invade. This is the largest number of Russian troops gathered at the border since 2014. Macron is in line with President Biden’s view that this is an unacceptable level of tension.
“I think we need to define clear red lines with Russia,” to be credible, Macron said. He acknowledged that the international community had what he called a “naive approach” to Russia.
“I think what happened a few years ago when Ukraine was invaded is not a failure of diplomacy, it is a failure of our collective credibility with Russia,” Macron said, referring to the international community’s failure to impose Obama – The Biden administration’s “red line” on the use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2013. This inaction, in Macron’s opinion, encouraged Mr. Putin.
Monday later, Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula coming out of the Black Sea, far from Ukraine in 2014. The annexation was widely condemned by the international community, and the US sanctioned Russia in response.
On Thursday, Mr Biden announced several sanctions against Russia this week in retaliation for espionage and political interference, citing both SolarWinds cyber piracy and Moscow’s intervention in the 2020 US presidential election.
“We cannot allow a foreign power to intervene in our democratic process,” Mr Biden said in remarks announcing the sanctions on Thursday, although he added that “now is the time to disqualify”.
According to the White House reading of their telephone call on Tuesday, President Biden called on Vladimir Putin to “disqualify tensions” over Russian military accumulation in “occupied Crimea and on Ukraine’s borders.”
The full interview with Macron will air during “Face The Nation” on Sunday at 10:30 AM ET.