Negotiators for Ukraine and Russia are in Paris on Wednesday for Normandy format talks with French and German officials, as efforts intensify to avert a major escalation in the eight year-long Ukraine-Russia war.
Moscow’s representative Dmitry Kozak and Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are under pressure to find a way out of an increasingly tense standoff, with around 125,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s border.
Russia is demanding that Ukraine never be allowed to join Nato and the pullout of Nato forces from eastern Europe, something that Ukraine, NATO and the West have flatly rejected.
Instead, the Biden administration has put 8,500 troops on alert for deployment to eastern Europe and both the US and UK have sent thousands of anti-tank weapons and other defensive arms to bolster Kyiv’s defensive capabilities in case of a major new Russian attack.
Speaking ahead of the talks, French president Emmanuel Macron, said he would not abandon talks with Russia, but added: “If there is aggression, there will be retaliation and the cost will be very high.”
