On the occasion of the publication of his new book, the former president delivers a river interview with Le Figaro, published on Wednesday August 16. At the center of the interview, the position of Nicolas Sarkozy on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, which, according to him, will be diplomatic or will not be.
The former head of state prides himself on knowing Vladimir Putin well, strong from the resolution of the 2008 crisis: when Putin’s Russia massed its tanks at the gates of Georgia, the former president would have it, alone, “convinced to withdraw his tanks”. And even if “he is told that Vladimir Putin is no longer the one [he has] known”, Mr. Sarkozy is “not convinced” because the experience of their numerous telephone discussions would be proof, for him, that the Russian president “is not irrational. »
Diplomacy and exchange as the only acceptable solutions
Sarkozy does not believe in resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through arms. “Diplomacy, discussion, exchange remain the only means of finding an acceptable solution”, he declared to the daily marked on the right.
On Crimea first, “where a majority of the population has always felt Russian”, analyzes Mr. Sarkozy, “any backtracking is illusory”. Although the former president concedes that the annexation of Crimea in 2014 constitutes “a clear violation of international law”, the only outcome would be a referendum “organized under the strict control of the international community (…) to endorse the state current de facto”, i.e. the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
The same path should be explored for the “disputed territories of eastern and southern Ukraine”, which the Ukrainian army will still try to reconquer, “and this is quite normal”, by force. But the “exit from the top” would, once again, be a referendum supervised by the international community, the only one able, for Mr. Sarkozy, to “decide these territorial questions in a definitive and transparent way”.
As for the accession of Ukraine to the European Union or NATO, after the end of the conflict, the former head of state excludes it. For him, Ukraine should be “neutral” because it has “a vocation as a bridge between Europe and Russia”. “Asking Ukraine to choose between these two entities seems to me contrary to the history and geography of this complex region,” concludes the former president.
