West should address Russia’s concerns: Macron

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The West should consider how to address Russia’s need for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

In an interview with French TV station TF1 recorded during his state visit to the United States last week, Macron said Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture.

“This means that one of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that Nato comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said.

“That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table,” Macron said.

Many in Ukraine and the West are strongly opposed to any negotiation with Putin that would reward him with concessions after nearly 10 months of war, especially as Ukraine has driven back Russian forces from large areas in the past three months.

In another development, US intelligence expects the reduced tempo in fighting in Ukraine to continue in the next several months and sees no evidence of a reduced Ukrainian will to resist, despite attacks on its power grid and other critical winter infrastructure, the Director of National Intelligence said on Saturday.

“We’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict … and we expect that’s likely to be what we see in the coming months,” Avril Haines told the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.