French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation today, AFP reported. The leaders of the two countries were to agree to “deescalate the migrant crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border”. In addition, the conversation turned to the presence of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. Earlier, there was also an extended conversation between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Here the emphasis was on “the need for humanitarian aid to refugees and migrants”.
President Macron was also expected to raise the issue of Russian military presence near Ukraine’s eastern borders, AFP reports. “France is ready to defend the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Emmanuel Macron assured.
“The purpose of this conversation was to end this crisis,” Macron’s adviser told reporters at the end of a conversation lasting an hour and 45 minutes (initiated by the French President).
The same agency also reported that Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko contacted German Chancellor Angela Merkel today. According to Tadeusz Giczan, a Belarusian opposition journalist, the conversation itself lasted about 50 minutes, but its details remain a mystery. All that is known is what the press office of the German Federal Government reported, namely that the main topic was “the need for humanitarian aid to refugees and migrants”.