PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said that any Ukraine ceasefire agreement would need to “start from reality,” comments likely to further fuel concerns in Kyiv that it will be forced to cede territory to Russia.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined special envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg in Paris for the talks Thursday alongside high-level representatives from the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Germany.
While all sides agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire, an Elysée official, speaking after the day’s discussions concluded, emphasized pragmatism while noting “a number of territories are currently occupied by Russia.”
Witkoff, who has traveled to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on multiple occasions, just days ago told Fox News that the peace deal Russia has proposed hinges on “five territories of Ukraine.”
The special envoy did not specify which territories he meant, but they likely refer to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally seized in 2014, as well as Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — four regions where Russia conducted sham referendums before illegally annexing them, even though the Kremlin doesn’t fully control those territories.
Kyiv will never recognize these regions as Russian, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said after Witkoff’s comments, calling on the international community to respect the country’s territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders.
While the territorial contours of a ceasefire are just one of the many challenges that lay ahead in striking an agreement, Macron’s office said that Thursday marked the start of a “positive process in which Europeans are involved.”
“Our goal is peace as quickly as possible, a solid peace and a peace that guarantees respect for Ukraine’s essential rights,” the Elysée official said.
Europeans have so far struggled to get a seat at the talks and have been warning the U.S. administration against agreeing too quickly to a truce without solid security guarantees for Ukraine, as well as a system for monitoring and responding to any ceasefire violations.
To that end, the French and the British are spearheading a so-called “coalition of the willing,” which includes more than 30 countries who want to provide support for Ukraine, including the possible deployment of a reassurance force on the ground in case of a ceasefire.
The Elysée said Macron spoke with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier in the day and after the meetings. Similar meetings involving high-level representatives from France, Germany, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States will be held in London next week.
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