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French President Francois Hollande is expected to try and build a diplomatic bridge between his Russian and US counterparts Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama who have been engaged in a war of words over Ukraine.
The presidents, as well as 15 other world leaders, arrived in France today ahead of Friday’s 70th anniversary of the D-Day (Normandy) landing by allied forces fighting Nazi Germany during World War II.
They will gather on the beaches of Normandy where tens of thousands of allied troops died on June 6, 1944 as they opened a beachhead which eventually led to the end of the war.
Although Obama and Putin are most likely not to meet – Washington has requested that Hollande not try to bring the two together – France will act as an intermediary between Russian and Ukrainian leaders on the sidelines of the commemoration events.
“The Putin-Hollande meeting will center on the settlement of Ukraine crisis, particularly an end to punitive operations in the country’s southeast and the May 25 presidential elections,” a Kremlin press release said.
France’s diplomatic activity comes on the heels of a G7 (absent Russia) meeting in Brussels in which the organisation’s leaders urged Moscow to accept the recent elections in Ukraine.
Hollande is hoping to establish contacts between Putin and Ukrainian president-elect Petro Poroshenko.
However, in a communique following their Brussels meeting, the G7 leaders warned Russia that they have reached consensus to “implement significant additional restrictive measures to impose further costs on Russia should events so require”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters following the G7 meeting that:
“If we do not have progress in the questions we have to solve, there is the possibility of sanctions (even heavier phase 3 sanctions) on the table, because we cannot afford a further destabilisation in Ukraine.”
Earlier, there had been some criticism pointed at Hollande for inviting the Russian President.
However, Hollande insisted that Putin’s involvement in Normandy celebrations is necessary because “we owe to the Russian people, or more precisely, to the Soviet people at that time” for their heroism and sacrifice in defeating Nazi Germany.
At least 22 million Soviets died fighting Nazi Germany during World War II.
“This is why President Putin needed to be present on 6 June. The victory against the Nazi barbarism has been possible thanks to the landing, thanks to the will of the Allied countries, and by the Russian people,” Hollande told reporters.
Last month, Russian officials reacted angrily when Prince Charles compared Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in regards to Russia’s Ukraine policies.
For many Russians, any comparison to Hitler is considered insulting, a former UK ambassador to Russia told London’s Daily Mail.
But on Friday, Putin is expected to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Merkel in separate bilateral meetings.
Source: Agencies
