Putin must accept ceasefire with Ukraine or face new sanctions - French FM
France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot (Photo: Getty Images)
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin will have to agree to a ceasefire or face new sanctions, states France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot in an interview with La Tribune.
Barrot believes Putin has good reason to take Trump’s Geneva-negotiated peace plan seriously, pointing to Russia’s setbacks on the battlefield.
“Russia’s millimeter-by-millimeter advance in eastern Ukraine is coming at an enormous human cost: more than 1,000 Russian soldiers are dying on the front every day,” the minister said.
He explained that to mask these battlefield failures, Russia is deliberately striking civilian infrastructure and residential areas deep inside Ukraine, violating international law and the rules of war.
He stressed that Moscow now faces a choice: agree to halt the fighting or brace for additional sanctions.
“Vladimir Putin must accept a ceasefire or face new sanctions that will further drain Russia’s economy - along with strengthened European support for Ukraine,” the French foreign minister concluded.
US peace plan
A few weeks ago, the United States presented Ukraine with a new peace plan aimed at ending the war. The original 28-point document heavily favored Russia, as it included many of the Kremlin’s core demands.
Under the proposal, Ukraine would have been required to withdraw from the Donbas, reduce the size of its armed forces, give up long-range weapons, and meet a series of other conditions.
Because of this, the US, Ukrainian, and European delegations met in Geneva on November 23 to revise the plan and make it more favorable to Kyiv.
Ukraine and the US later issued a joint statement saying that the final provisions of the document would be agreed upon during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Work on the plan is still ongoing. Yesterday, Zelenskyy announced that National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov and the Ukrainian delegation are already on their way to the US to continue negotiations.
Reuters reported that the meeting with the American side will take place tomorrow and will include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump himself previously said he would send Witkoff to Moscow. According to Kremlin statements, the visit is expected next week.
