PARIS, February 6./TASS/. It is impossible to normalize the international situation without dialogue with Russia, French President Emmanuel Macron said ahead of a visit to Moscow.
"The recent period has confirmed that if we reject a dialogue, and this was the choice of the Europeans when, together with Chancellor Merkel, we proposed to hold an EU-Russia summit, - then it is impossible to resolve any conflict whatsoever," Macron said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche weekly on Sunday.
"Since in this case we allow others to speak on our behalf and can no longer contribute to our collective security," the president said. In comments on the situation around Ukraine, he said "it is necessary now to scale down tensions through dialogue in order to avoid an armed conflict".
The West and Kiev have been echoing claims lately that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that these assertions were made to whip tensions in the region and that Russia didn’t threaten anyone. At the same time, he didn’t rule out provocations to back these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have serious consequences.