PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed strategies on Sunday, including what the Ukrainian leader described as joint decisions ahead of this week’s anniversary of Russia’s invasion of his country.
The two leaders spoke by telephone as Western leaders pledged at a conference in Munich to strengthen their support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s latest military attacks.
Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said he thanked the French president “for understanding our needs and for expressing jointly that we cannot waste any opportunity or a single week in our defence against Russian aggression.”
“…We also discussed important decisions that we are planning for this week – for our year of resistance.”
That was a reference to the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion — on 24th February.
Macron’s office said in a statement the two leaders had discussed Zelenskiy’s visits this month to London, Paris and the European Union in Brussels, and that Macron had restated NATO backing for more military supplies to Ukraine.
Macron also reaffirmed to Zelenskiy his support for a 10-point peace proposal laid out by Zelenskiy, during their phone call.
Macron had told the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that while France wanted Russia to be defeated in Ukraine, France did not want to “crush” Russia.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Ron Popeski, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Diane Craft)
