Russia-Ukraine Negotiations

French President Emmanuel Macron held a 90 minute phone call instigated by President Vladimir Putin Thursday in which any hopes to call off the war were quickly extinguished. After hanging up, Macron–one of the few world leaders still taking the Russian leader’s calls—felt simply, “the worst is yet to come.”

The call came as a cavalcade of increasingly crazy stories emerged from Moscow which signaled Putin was becoming ever more isolated and willing to lash out at Ukraine and his own people.

In the Kremlin readout of the call, Putin promised the “special military operation will be fulfilled in any case,” referring to the invasion in less than accurate terms. “Attempts to gain time by dragging negotiations will only lead to additional requirements for Kyiv in our negotiating position,” Putin said. Macron, for his part, tried to convince Putin that his plans to “denazify Ukraine,” using vintage Soviet terminology, is “a lie” and “an insult to the history of Russia and Ukraine, to the memory of our elders who fought side by side against Nazism.”

Putin, who denied shelling Ukrainian cities even as they were being bombarded during the call, was clearly unmoved by the argument. Afterwards, an aide to Macron told reporters: “The expectation of the president is that the worst is to come, given what President Putin told him... There was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us. He showed great determination to continue the operation.”