“I would say that Russia is unilaterally waging the most brutal war. It has now been established that the Russian army has committed war crimes, and now those responsible must be found and brought to justice,” Macron said.
“At the same time, I look at the facts and want to keep the chances of stopping this war and restoring peace as much as possible. I am not convinced that a verbal escalation will help,” the French president said.
Political leaders need to choose their names carefully, Macron said in an interview with France 2, who launched a pre-election campaign ahead of the second round of the French presidential election on April 24, in which he will have to contend with far-right candidate Marina Lepen for the second time.
He said it was best to use caution when using the term genocide in such situations, especially because “Ukrainians and Russians are brothers.” “Brotherly people” is a term often used in Russian propaganda to emphasize supposedly close ties between nations.
Macro France 2 promised to call Russian President Vladimir Putin once again in the coming days, as well as to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Biden on Tuesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops of genocide in Ukraine. This was the first time the US presidential administration had applied the term “genocide” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that Putin is just trying to get rid of even the idea of being a Ukrainian,” Biden said.
Macron expressed a similar view after Biden called Putin a “butcher” after meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Poland last month.
Zelensky welcomed Baiden’s position. He himself has said that he has been subjected to genocide against the Ukrainian state and people since February 24, when Russia launched an invasion.
In turn, in response to Makron’s remarks, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has said that it is disappointed in the choice of French president’s terms.
“After all the statements by the Russian leadership and the criminal actions of the Russian military, the reluctance of French President Emanuel Macron to recognize the Ukrainian genocide is disappointing,” said Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesman for the ministry.
“Ukraine and Russia are historically close for objective reasons, but the myth of two brother nations, the Russians and the Ukrainians, began to crumble after the annexation of Crimea and the aggression in Donbass in 2014,” Nikolenko added. “Then the Russian ‘brothers’ allegedly came to defend the Russian-speaking population, but killed 14,000 Ukrainians in eight years.”
The diplomat emphasized that the myth of the brothers’ nations had been completely shattered when the first Russian missiles began flying to Ukrainian cities in February.
“The fraternal people are not killing children, they are not questioning civilians, they are not raping women, they are not distorting the elderly, they are not destroying the other brothers’ nation’s house,” the Ukrainian spokesman explained to Makron. “The atrocities against vulnerable people do not allow themselves to be the most sworn enemies.”
A ministry official has emphasized that there is now no moral or factual justification for chatting about “brotherly” ties between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples.
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