According to the version of the French Presidency, the three leaders held a telephone conversation, in which Macron and Scholz insisted that the solution of the crisis must result from negotiations between Moscow and Kiev. Talking about the talks they also demanded Putin an immediate cease-fire, in a day in which the heads of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and Ukraine, Dmitri Kuleba, met in the Turkish city of Antalya.

France and Germany have maintained their rapprochement with Moscow in the search for a diplomatic solution to the hostilities, but at the same time they have been actively involved in the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia and in the announcement of arms shipments to Ukraine, where the Kremlin began military operations on 24 February.

Russia launched the military action after denouncing that its neighbor is attacking the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, for which reason it claimed the need to protect them, after recognizing their independence.

Russia further stressed its right to defense in the face of the West’s aim to use Ukraine as a spearhead to further expand NATO into Eastern Europe.

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