French President Emmanuel Macron said in response to Ukraine that Paris condemns Russian war crimes and does not need any other definitions. French President Emmanuel Macron did not support the proposal of his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to designate Russia a sponsor of terrorism, saying that Paris doesn't need any definitions to condemn Moscow or condemn its alleged war crimes. On Monday, Zelensky claimed that the Russian state had become the largest terrorist organization in the world. The Ukrainian president wrote on Telegram that this must be a legal fact.
Macron said that his country does not follow such methodology and has been consistent in its approach to Russian war crimes after commenting on Zelensky's statement at a press conference on Tuesday. Referring to the alleged murder of civilians in the city of Bucha by Russian forces, Moscow vehemently denies that these are war crimes. He stressed that Paris condemns them and supports investigations that will eventually bring those responsible for the atrocities to Ukrainian and international justice. Macron claimed that France does not need any judicial definitions for sanctioning Russia.
"We don't need any definitions to carry out the sanctions," the French leader said.
He said that France and its allies will continue to impose restrictions on Moscow and to support Ukraine, both economically and militarily, as Russia cannot and should not win in the conflict. According to Macron, the goal is to make Kiev able to negotiate with Russia on its terms and at the moment it chooses. Macron has refused to use judicial terms to describe the situation in Ukraine. In April he said he would not use the word genocide to describe Russia's conduct in Ukraine, because he stated that the word genocide must be qualified by jurists and not by politicians. Zelensky claimed that everyone in the world should know that buying or transporting Russian oil, keeping contacts with Russian banks, paying taxes and customs duties to the Russian state means giving money to terrorists. Since the launch of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of targeting civilians and committing other war crimes. On Monday, Ukraine claimed Russia attacked a shopping mall in the city of Kremenchug, killing and injuring many civilians. The Russian military responded that it had targeted a stockpile of Western weapons, but the detonation of the munitions caused damage to a nearby shopping mall, which, according to Moscow, was non-functioning.
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, after Ukraine failed to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French-brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.
The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive was unprovoked and has denied that it was planning to retake the two republics by force.