In the East, nothing new.
After their very long meeting on February 7 in Moscow around an oversized table, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine spoke again by telephone this Sunday for nearly 1 hour 45 minutes.
At the end of this exchange, the two heads of state agreed to do everything to quickly reach a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, announced the Elysee.
The two leaders also agreed to hold a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE), “in the next few hours”, this Sunday evening.
They agreed on “the need to favor a diplomatic solution to the current crisis and to do everything to achieve it”.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov “in the coming days”.
For his part, Vladimir Putin once again blew hot and cold.
He questioned Emmanuel Macron's Ukrainian "provocations" in the worsening of the fighting with the separatists in eastern Ukraine, while saying he wanted to "intensify" diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict.
He reaffirmed, according to the Elysee, his intention to withdraw his troops from Belarus.
Russian demands rejected by Westerners
Earlier in the day, the Belarusian minister nevertheless announced the continuation of joint military exercises with Russia on its territory.
According to the Kremlin, the Russian president also asked that NATO and the United States "take seriously" Russia's demands concerning its security, at the heart of the current crisis between Moscow and the West.
Russia, accused of having massed 150,000 soldiers on the borders of Ukraine with a view to an invasion, demands the promise that Kiev will never integrate NATO and an end to the military reinforcement of the Alliance on its borders.
Requests rejected by Westerners.
"Serious concerns have been expressed about the sharp deterioration of the situation on the line of contact in the Donbass," the Kremlin said.
The Russian president believes that Western deliveries of arms and ammunition to Ukrainian forces are "pushing Kiev towards a military solution" in its conflict with pro-Russian separatists, which has been going on since 2014.
"The biggest war in Europe since 1945"
In the process, Emmanuel Macron exchanged with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
At the end, the latter demanded an "immediate ceasefire" while the shooting on the front in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have controlled part of Donbass since 2014, has increased dramatically in recent years. days.
Loud explosions sounded Saturday evening in the center of the city of Donetsk, controlled by the separatists.
NATO has transferred its personnel based in Kiev to Lviv.
Despite these diplomatic signals of appeasement, everything indicates that Russia is “about” to invade Ukraine again alerted Antony Blinken, the head of American diplomacy, who is to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday.
US President Joe Biden has said he is ready to meet Vladimir Putin “at any time”.
He will first have the opportunity to speak with Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, or even Boris Johnson in "the next few hours".
On Sunday morning, the British Prime Minister threatened Russian companies with economic sanctions and claimed that Russia was preparing "what could be the biggest war in Europe since 1945".