In his first phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron since 2022, Russian leader Vladimir Putin asserted on Tuesday that the conflict in Ukraine is a direct result of Western policies.
According to a Kremlin statement issued on Tuesday, July 1, Putin told Macron that Western nations had “for many years ignored Russia’s security interests” and “created an anti-Russian bridgehead in Ukraine.”
Putin also conveyed to the French president that any future peace agreement should be “comprehensive and long-term,” aiming to eliminate the fundamental causes of the Ukrainian crisis and acknowledge the “new territorial realities.”
