France’s Élysée Palace reported that President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for more than two hours today. There was agreement to stay in touch on all levels. In response to Macron’s concern over global food security, Putin said that it is primarily the sanctions imposed by the West that exacerbate the situation. “Putin stressed that the situation in this field was aggravated in the first place by the Western countries’ sanctions and underscored the importance of unhampered operation of the global logistic and transport infrastructure.”
Putin stressed his concern that the EU member-countries were consistently ignoring war crimes being committed by the Ukrainian forces, including the massive bombardments of Donbas villages and cities, killing innocent civilians. He made the simple suggestion that “the West might contribute to putting these crimes to an end by exerting pressure on the authorities in Kiev and terminating weapons supplies to Ukraine.” Macron’s response, if any, was not made public.
