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Putin, Macron discuss speculations about alleged Russian invasion of Ukraine - Kremlin

The two presidents continued to exchange views on security guarantees for Russia and on how to break the deadlock in resolving the intra-Ukrainian crisis

MOSCOW, February 12. /TASS/. Provocative speculations about alleged Russian plans to invade Ukraine were in the focus of a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, the Kremlin said in a statement after the two presidents’ talks.

The two presidents continued to exchange views on security guarantees for Russia and on how to break the deadlock in resolving the intra-Ukrainian crisis.

"Additionally, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron discussed the situation linked to provocative speculations about an alleged Russian plans for the ‘invasion’ of Ukraine, to the accompaniment of the large-scale pumping of cutting-edge weapons into that country and the creation of conditions for potential aggressive actions by Ukrainian military in Donbass," the statement says.

The Kremlin pointed out that the Russian leader emphasized "the unwillingness of leading Western countries to push Kiev towards the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which was once more proven at the fruitless round of consultations held in Berlin on February 10 by political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy format states."

Putin and Macron discussed, in addition to Ukraine, in their telephone conversation how to preserve and implement the Iran nuclear deal, the Kremlin said.

"They touched upon the issue of the preservation and full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) on the Iranian nuclear program," the Russian president’s press service said.

The Russian president’s press service said that the two leaders agreed to keep the issues "in the spotlight of the Russian-French dialogue at the highest level."

The eighth round of talks resumed in Vienna on January 3 after a New Year break. The negotiations seek to restore the original JCPoA and bring the US back into the multilateral agreement. The talks are held within the JCPoA Joint Commission between Iran and the five world powers (Russia, the UK, Germany, China and France), and also include their separate consultations with the United States without Iran, which has not yet been ready for direct negotiations with US. The parties agreed to accelerate the process of drafting the agreement. This round is expected to be the last, as the parties intend to complete the talks in February 2022.

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