How Putin fooled the Europeans

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, admits it without euphemisms: his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has deceived him.

He made fun of him and not only him, but other European leaders who, like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, until the last moment thought that diplomatic means or threats of sanctions could prevent the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. .

“Yes, there was duplicity [in Putin],” Macron accused in the early hours of Friday at the end of the extraordinary European summit on Ukraine in Brussels.

"Yes, there was a deliberate and conscious decision, on the part of President Putin, to launch the war when we could still negotiate peace."

Almost a month of diplomatic activity by the French and its partners came to nothing when on Monday Putin decided to send troops to the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine and on the night of Wednesday to Thursday he ordered the invasion of a European sovereign country, the first in eight decades.

Macron and his associates have been left with the feeling that Putin has taken them for a ride, but also the conviction that they did the right thing in trying to save the peace until the last minute.

Macron and Scholz started from different positions.

The French president has been at the helm of a nuclear power with a permanent seat in the UN Security Council for five years, a country that has never given up making itself heard in the club of great powers.

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The German chancellor leads a world economic power, but without the geopolitical weight of France.

Tensions with Russia caught the new German government still establishing itself.

The Social Democrat Scholz kept a low profile for the first few weeks – which cost him internal and external criticism – but in the final stretch he joined the diplomatic efforts with multiple calls and meetings.

"[Macron] fulfilled his duty, which was to do everything to prevent war," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian defended on Tuesday.

"Any diplomatic effort is justified, I spent days and nights with Vladimir Putin," former President François Hollande agreed on Friday after meeting at the Elysee Palace with Macron, who had summoned him and another predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

As much as the warnings from the allies, especially from the United States, followed each other, the beginning of the invasion was a surprise in Berlin, whose foreign policy with respect to Russia has always been one of appeasement.

An approach that has allowed him to do business with the neighbor to the East and ensure the supply of energy without stopping to think about the true nature of the current tenant of the Kremlin.

In Germany, self-criticism is beginning to surface regarding the complacency with which Berlin has treated the Russian president in recent years.

"German politicians have never understood that Putin has different beliefs than the West," writes

Christian Neef, a former Moscow correspondent and author of several books on Russia.

Only now, with the invasion underway after efforts to try to talk to Putin, does Berlin seem to realize its miscalculation.

"The West, Europe and Germany have been too naive," German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck admitted on Thursday.

Not only for placing hopes in a negotiated exit;

also for having allowed its energy dependency to grow on a regime that has given enough clues over the years that it does not share European democratic values.

The EU, not just Macron, has opened several channels of dialogue with Putin in recent weeks: from the visits to the Kremlin by the French president and the German chancellor – on February 7 and 15, respectively – to meetings in the so-called Normandy – made up of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine – to reactivate the peace process in the east of the country, now buried.

The priority was to keep the dialogue alive.

Neither Macron nor Scholz was convinced that Putin probably had it all planned for a long time.

The Europeans acted in concert with the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and with the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, and in their meetings they maintained the common line in the face of Putin's demands.

But the US and the Europeans disagreed on the risk assessment.

"No, I don't think there is anything new that indicates an increase in fear of an attack," said the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, at the end of January, after the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, spoke of an "imminent" offensive from Ukraine to Russia.

"There is no denying the different sensitivities or even the analyzes that are not exactly the same based on common realities," French Europe Minister Clément Beaune said in early February.

Macron's diplomatic hyperactivism – especially the visit to the Kremlin – aroused the suspicion that the Frenchman was on his own.

In 2018, some had felt ignored when Macron tried to start a thaw with Putin.

His diagnosis, that year, of NATO's supposed “brain death” did not help dispel mistrust either.

In recent weeks, however, Macron has avoided taking any steps without talking to everyone.

“When he went to Moscow, the feeling was that everyone was part of the same team,” says Georgina Wright, director of the Europe program at the Institut Montaigne think tank.

“This time there has been an unprecedented level of queries.”

In the meeting with Putin on February 7, Macron suffered the first snub.

After more than six hours face to face, the French president's team explained that the Russian had promised to avoid new military initiatives.

The Kremlin denied it a few hours later and implied that the valid interlocutor was not Macron, but Biden.

The second snub was suffered at the beginning of this week.

The previous Friday, in a phone call, Macron suggested to Biden that he meet with Putin and offered to convey the idea to the Russian president, which he did the same Sunday.

On Monday, the world woke up to the news that the leaders of the US and Russia would hold a summit.

"We have managed to open a real diplomatic channel," celebrated that day, in the morning, a source from the Elysee, who required anonymity.

The same source pointed out that Macron "[had] built a relationship with President Putin that is both demanding and clear" and that he also enjoyed the "credibility" with him that allowed him to facilitate the meeting with Biden.

The war seemed to recede.

Error.

A few hours later, Putin recognized in a televised speech the independence of the breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine and ordered the first military intervention.

The decision fell like a blow at the Elysee.

"President Putin did not respect the word given to the President of the Republic, and also in public in numerous interventions," lamented the aforementioned French source, who described the Russian's speech as "rigid and paranoid."

And he clinched: "We have reached the end of the road that we could travel."

It was the end.

Little more than two days later, Russia launched the military offensive throughout Ukraine and the war returned to Europe.

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