PARIS, March 14. /TASS/. Presidents of France and the United States, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden respectively, agreed during their telephone conversation to step up sanction measures against Russia, the press office of the French president said in a statement on Monday.
"The heads of two countries agreed to tighten current measures regarding sanctions against Russia, to provide support for Ukraine and to adopt jointly all initiatives aimed at stopping combat activities," the statement reads.
The statement also reads that Macron expressed his condolences over the death of American journalist Brent Renaud, who was killed in Ukraine. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Renaud, who once worked for it, had been killed in the Kiev Region and his colleague Juan Arredondo had been wounded.
On February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees at a ceremony in the Kremlin recognizing the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR). Putin met with DPR leader Denis Pushilin and LPR leader Leonid Pasechnik, and signed treaties with them on friendship, cooperation and mutual aid between Russia and both republics.
President Putin said in a televised address on February 24 that in response to a request from the heads of the Donbass republics, he had decided to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry reassured earlier that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, and are limited to surgical strikes and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure, insisting that there is no threat whatsoever to the civilian population.