File picture of French President Emmanuel Macron with U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Elysee Palace in Paris
| Photo Credit: Reuters

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday (February 20, 2025) he will travel to Washington to try to convince President Donald Trump that his interests were in line with European allies and that showing any weakness to Russia’s Vladimir Putin would make it harder to deal with China and Iran.

“Trump, I know him. I respect him and I believe he respects me,” Mr. Macron said during a one-hour question and answer session on social media. “I will tell him: deep down you cannot be weak in the face of President (Vladimir Putin). It’s not you, it’s not what you’re made of and it’s not in your interests.”

Mr. Macron said the uncertainty in how Mr. Trump was handling Russia’s three-year-old invasion of Ukraine was worrying for U.S. allies because he could negotiate something that was insufficient, but it was also creating uncertainty for Mr. Putin and this was something that needed to be used to help negotiations.

“The word is uncertainty. Donald Trump creates uncertainty among others because he wants to make deals, so Donald Trump creating uncertainty for Vladimir Putin is a good thing,” Mr. Macron said, adding that the Russian president did not know what Trump would do or how he could act.

Mr. Macron is due to go to Washington on Monday to hold talks with Mr. Trump as Europeans seek to ensure they play a key role in negotiations to end the conflict and outline how they plan to provide security guarantees for Ukraine should there be a ceasefire.

The French leader also said showing weakness to Putin that would lead to the capitulation of Ukraine with a bad deal would also make Trump less credible to tackle China and in curbing Iran’s nuclear programme.

“How can you be credible with China if you’re weak with Putin?” Mr. Macron said, holding his fist firmly, and adding that letting Ukraine fall to Russia would send a strategic signal to Beijing on Taiwan.

“And you who doesn’t want Iran to get the nuclear bomb, you can’t be weak with someone who is helping it to get one,” Mr. Macron said.

Mr. Macron, who called recent developments a new era, was speaking in a question-and-answer session on social media as part of French government efforts to make people more aware of the impact of the Ukraine war on France amid the fast-moving diplomacy since Mr. Trump took office a month ago.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a meeting in Helsinki on July 16, 2018.
| Photo Credit: AFP

President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a phone call Wednesday to begin “negotiations” on ending the Ukraine war and would “work together, very closely” toward winding down the conflict.

“We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,” Trump said in a social media post disclosing details about a call that followed a prisoner swap between the two nations. “But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.

The Republican president said the leaders also “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” and would be alerting Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy about their conversation.

White House officials declined to clarify whether Ukraine would be a party to the U.S. negotiations with Russia.

The call came on the heels of a prisoner swap in which Russia released American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, of Pennsylvania, after more than three years of detention on drug charges. Alexander Vinnik, a convicted Russian criminal, is being freed as part of the swap that saw Moscow’s release of Fogel, according to people familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic details.

Vinnik was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the U.S. on cryptocurrency fraud charges and was later extradited to the United States, where he pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering. He is currently in custody in California awaiting transport to return to Russia, the officials said.

The Kremlin said Wednesday that a Russian citizen was freed in the United States in exchange for Fogel but refused to identify him until he arrives in Russia.

Trump welcomed Fogel at the White House on Tuesday evening after his return to U.S. soil.

Fogel, an American history teacher who was deemed wrongfully detained by Russia, was released in what the White House described as a diplomatic thaw that could advance negotiations to end the fighting in Ukraine. Fogel was arrested in August 2021 and was serving a 14-year prison sentence.

Steve Witkoff, a special envoy for Trump, left Russia with Fogel and took him to the White House, where Trump greeted him. Fogel was expected to be reunited with his family.

Trump declined to say if he spoke with Putin about Fogel and didn’t say what the United States provided in exchange for Fogel’s release.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump suggested that Fogel’s release could help anchor a peace deal on Ukraine, saying: “We were treated very nicely by Russia, actually. I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.”

The Kremlin was more cautious, but it also noted that the deal could help strengthen mutual trust.

Putin invited Trump to Moscow to discuss Ukraine, Kremlin says

Meanwhile the Kremlin said that Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump agreed to meet in the future and Mr. Putin invited Mr. Trump to Moscow.

Mr. Putin last spoke to a sitting U.S. President in February 2022 when he had a call with Joe Biden shortly before ordering thousands of troops into Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump discussed the Middle East, bilateral relations, Ukraine and a prisoner exchange between Washington and Moscow, state news agency TASS reported.

“The Russian President invited the U.S. president to visit Moscow and expressed his readiness to receive American officials in Russia in those areas of mutual interest, including, of course, the topic of the Ukrainian settlement,” Mr. Peskov said. “Putin and Trump also agreed to continue personal contacts, including arranging a face-to-face meeting.”

Mr. Trump, author of the 1987 book Trump: the Art of the Deal, has repeatedly said he wants to end the war and that he will meet Mr. Putin to discuss it, though the date or venue for a summit is still not publicly known. 

File picture of U.S. President Donald Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin
| Photo Credit: AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday (November 7, 2024) congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory in his first public comment on the U.S. vote, and he praised the president-elect’s courage during the July assassination attempt.

“His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man,” Mr. Putin said at an international forum following a speech in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

“He manifested himself in the very correct way, bravely as a man,” he added.

Mr. Putin also said that what Mr. Trump has said “about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, deserves attention at least.”

The Kremlin earlier welcomed Mr. Trump’s claim that he could negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine “in 24 hours” but emphasised that it will wait for concrete policy steps.

″I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election as president of the United States of America,” Mr. Putin said in a question-and-answer session at the conference.

As to what he expects from a second Mr. Trump administration, Mr. Putin said, “I don’t know what will happen now. I have no idea.”

“For him, this is still his last presidential term. What he will do is his matter,” added Mr. Putin, who this year began a fifth term that will keep him in power until 2030 and could seek six more years in office after that.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the Kremlin is not ruling out the possibility of contact between Mr. Putin and Trump before the inauguration, given that Mr. Trump “said he would call Putin before the inauguration.”

Mr. Peskov has emphasized that Moscow views the U.S. as an “unfriendly” country that is directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He dismissed arguments that Mr. Putin’s failure to reach out quickly to Mr. Trump could hurt future ties, saying that Moscow’s relations with Washington already are at the “lowest point in history” and arguing that it will be up to the new U.S. leadership to change the situation.

The Kremlin’s cautious stand reflected its view of the U.S. vote as a choice between two unappealing possibilities. While Mr. Trump is known for his admiration of Mr. Putin, the Russian leader has repeatedly noted that during Mr. Trump’s first term, there were “so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia like no other president has ever introduced before him.”