MADRID, January 19. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized on Thursday that along with backing Ukraine, the possibility of dialogue with Russia should be preserved.
In an interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper, Macron admitted that he had not spoken to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in recent weeks. At the same time, the French president came out in favor of always maintaining "the ability for dialogue."
"I believe that the trigger for this war is a phenomenon fundamentally driven by the crisis that the Russian model is experiencing. Russia - as a power - is searching for itself and looking for a destiny," Macron said. "I don’t believe that this war has its origins in Europe," the French president added.
"The Russians are a great people, and Russia is a great nation, territorially and historically. The ability to survive the period after 1991 (when communism collapsed) has been very difficult. When you look at a people geographically settled in between so many borders - who have been shaken by different forms of terrorism, whose demography is declining - you can see that their future is at stake," he went on to say. "Russia has made a choice…," Macron stressed.
Macron's interlocutor, writer Javier Cercas, linked "the humiliation that the Germans faced at the end of World War I" to the start of World War II. In this regard, the French leader was asked whether he was making a historical reference to this when he spoke about not humiliating the Russians. "Yes, absolutely," Macron said.
The president said he shared the concern regarding the possibility of a war between major powers in Europe. "Many Europeans - and we must also pay tribute to the Americans, who had great clarity and strength to support Ukraine from day one. There is also great clarity in our desire for the war not to spread," he said. "And so that’s why we’ve never had any talk of verbal escalation or anything like that. I think it’s very important to maintain that position, informed by experience," the French leader stressed.