{"id":38938,"date":"2022-02-08T09:12:31","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=38938"},"modified":"2022-02-08T09:12:31","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:12:31","slug":"macron-putin-meeting-produces-potential-deal-as-biden-continues-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/08\/macron-putin-meeting-produces-potential-deal-as-biden-continues-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron-Putin Meeting Produces Potential Deal as Biden Continues Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has produced a potential agreement to de-escalate tensions over Ukraine, according to officials in Paris. The Financial Times reports<\/a> that Putin has \u201cmoved towards de-escalating the Ukraine crisis by promising not to undertake any new \u2018military initiatives\u2019 and agreeing to withdraw thousands of Russian troops from Belarus after the completion of planned exercises.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov clarified that any deal would \u201crequire agreement from France\u2019s EU and NATO allies, first and foremost the US,\u201d Putin said<\/a> the Paris proposal could serve as a basis for a settlement to the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, adding<\/a> that he \u201cwill do everything to find compromises that suit everyone.\u201d Putin and Macron plan to speak again after the French leader meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A second bilateral meeting between world leaders occurred in Washington, where US President Joe Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Sholtz. Biden continues to take an aggressive posture, threatening to shut down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany. <\/p>\n

While Scholtz said Berlin is in agreement with the US on the steps it would take if Russia invaded Ukraine, the chancellor refrained from mentioning the Nord Stream 2 project and cited the need for ambiguity on sanctions, arguing \u201cwe do not spell out everything in public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like other European powers, Ukraine is unwilling to adopt America\u2019s aggressive rhetoric or pessimistic outlook, even as the supposed victim of the looming \u2018Russian aggression.\u2019 Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to President Zelensky, said \u201cAn honest assessment of the situation suggests that the chance of finding a diplomatic solution for de-escalation is still substantially higher than the threat of further escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n

One pitfall<\/a> for any potential agreement would be a major US military escalation in Ukraine. Russia is warning of that possibility, with its TASS news outlet reporting<\/a> that Kyiv has called on the US to \u201cdeploy several battalions of THAAD mobile anti-ballistic missile defense launchers with radars\u201d within its borders.<\/p>\n

Since 2007, Putin has warned US missile defense systems in Eastern Europe cross Russia\u2019s \u2018red lines\u2019 and pose an existential threat to his country, while Peskov said any such deployment in Ukraine would mark \u201canother step towards destabilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Porter<\/i><\/a> contributed to the article. Reprinted with permission from The Libertarian Institute<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has produced a potential agreement to de-escalate tensions over Ukraine, according to officials in Paris. The Financial Times reports that Putin has \u201cmoved towards de-escalating the Ukraine crisis by promising not to undertake any new \u2018military initiatives\u2019 and agreeing to withdraw thousands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38940,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38938\/revisions\/38940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38938"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}