While U.S. President Joe Biden keeps beating the war drum, French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin just had a direct phone call with each other and both stressed their committment to peace and de-escalation of the Ukraine crisis.
Both leaders agreed to multilateral talks, involving also the leaders of Ukraine, key European countries and allies. Specifically, they agreed to begin trilateral talks “within the next few hours” with the goal of getting all parties to agree to a ceasefire.
The French and Russian Foreign Ministers, Le Drian and Lavrow, are going to meet in the next few days and further meetings are planned.
Both parties stressed their interest in a diplomatic solution.