MEZIESBLOG

Ukraine must be “realistic” when it comes to territorial disputes as a potential peace deal with Russia looms, Emmanuel Macron has said. 

This marks the first time the French leader, a keen ally of Kyiv, has suggested that Ukraine should consider a position beyond seeking to regain all territory seized by Russia.

Russia currently holds about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the annexed Crimean peninsula since 2014. 

Macron is the latest in a series of European and world leaders that have watered down strong rhetoric. 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself told Sky’s Stuart Ramsay at the end of last year he would be willing to let Russia keep occupied regions for the time being, in order to stop the fighting and allow Ukraine to join NATO. 

“The Ukrainians need to hold a realistic discussion on the territorial questions and only they can do that, and the Europeans are counting on building security guarantees that will be their responsibility,” Macron said.

He also said the US should aim to convince Russia to get to the negotiating table in the first place, but that any final agreement had to involve Ukraine and Europe. 

“There will not be a quick and easy solution,” he added. 

Putin’s forces ‘expecting another Kursk attack’

A Russian commander has said he expects Ukraine to launch another attack in the Kursk region, after Mocow claimed to have foiled a new offensive there today.

“Of course, this is not the end,” Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of a Chechen unit fighting for Russia in Kursk, said after the Russian defence ministry said it had thwarted Ukraine’s progress (see 11.29am post). 

“Now we are recording a concentration of enemy equipment in another direction and naturally we understand that he (Ukraine) will try to strike in this direction,” he added.

“Right now I won’t say where.”