While France and Germany sit at the negotiating table to Russia and Ukraine, the United States recruits its war narrative.
That is the atmosphere in which the meeting they have celebrated this Wednesday in Paris, the political advisors of the Normandy Cuartero, the first since the tensions were exploded at the Russian-Ukrainian border last December.
Everything indicates “that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin,” will make use of military force at some point, maybe between now and mid-February, “said Sherman’s Deputy Secretary, Wendy Sherman, although he said Ignore if Putin has taken”
A definitive decision “In this regard. Despite the contradiction between” everything indicates “and” is not known “, Sherman speculated even with the meaning of Putin’s presence at the opening ceremony of Beijing’s Olympics,
At first of February. “This could have an impact on the calendar,” he said.
The drums of an invasion of Ukraine on the part of Russia began to sound in mid-November and that are almost three months, despite which, NATO and the US continue to believe that aggression can be imminent.
In Europe, the situation is observed with less dramatism, unless the continent is deliberately playing good policeman, and his transatlantic partner to the bad.
The strategy, if it is, is not giving results in Russia, which has not only retired its troops from the border with Ukraine but continues with its military maneuvers.
The Paris meeting did not arouse more expectations than its celebration in itself.
The level of the participants has been medium and in the agenda included in the agenda was not thorny.
As already advanced French government sources, the talks dealt with humanitarian affairs and the possibility of holding negotiations on the status of the Donbas region in East Ukraine, where the separatists backed by Russia controlled territory strips.
If the answer is positive, Germany will be organized by the next Normandy meeting.
The name of this Normandy format comes from the meeting that the Allies held for the first time June 6, 2014 at the Bénouville Castle in Normandy (France), on the occasion of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the famous landing of the II War
World.
In that appointment, Russian Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Petro Poroshenko were also present.
Russia has already been healed in health.
From Moscow, Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has expressed his wish in the peace talks in Donbas are “long, open and fruitful”, although “at this time it is difficult to evaluate that progress is.”
“I hope a good, open dialogue and with the maximum degree of efficacy possible, but what it means as much as possible, it is very difficult to say now,” Peskov said.
The last face-to-face meeting at the level of political advisors took place on January 12, 2021 in Berlin.
Then, the contacts within the quartet were held telematically.
At the presidential level, the meeting occurred in 2019 in Paris.
Since then and despite the contacts of the advisors, the process is stagnant.
The reactivation of the barracks is essential for European diplomacy, which for various reasons does not find a hole to raise the voice in the current crisis situation, including the High EU representative in foreign policy, Josep Borrell, absent even in the teleconference that
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, maintained with the European partners of the G-7 and with the Community authorities.
In Europe, the voice that counts is that of France and Germany, even if they do not always share the same position.
With its mediation between Ukraine and Russia Since this country annexed Crimea in 2014, the Franco-German axis put the March the so-called Minsk Process, aimed at this time to resolve the conflict of Donbas.
The result was, in 2015, a package of agreements that included, among others, the exchange of prisoners according to the principle of “all by all”, the separation of forces into three zones of the contact line, the celebration of elections and the
Granting a special status to the private separatory territories.
The peace agreements have not been fulfilled and the accusations are mutual.
Ukraine has looked for a new summit, but Russia considers that Kiev should sit down to negotiate not with Moscow, but with the rebels supported by the Kremlin in Lugansk and Donetsk, because from the point of view of Kremlin what happens in East Ukraine is
A “civil war” of which Russia is not part.
In the conflict more than 14,000 people have already passed away, according to the UN.
In an attempt to unfortunately a prescribed situation, President Enmanuel Macron will talk on Friday with Putin to propose a desdecaled plan.
The wind, however, does not blow it.
While NATO continues to strengthen the east flank as a sample of solidarity with a country that is not a member and Europe attempts to become a way, the US Embassy in Kiev “urged” this Wednesday to US citizens who are in Ukraine to leave the country without delay
.
“The safety situation in Ukraine remains unpredictable due to the growing threat of Russian military action and can deteriorate without prior notice,” says the statement released by diplomatic legation.
It is one more step in one direction that even uncomfortable Ukraine.
At first time, the United States announced that it would withdraw the unpresequent diplomatic staff.
For the Government of Kiev it was a disproportionate measure that prompted panic.
More than tension, what is being seen is a huge confusion.
