The Kremlin has rebuked President Macron for breaching protocol by allowing the broadcast of the phone call of his final vain attempt to restrain President Putin four days before the invasion of Ukraine, reports The Times.
Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said the inclusion in a television documentary of the nine-minute exchange broke with the tradition of confidentiality that covers private conversations between leaders. “Diplomatic etiquette does not provide for unilateral leaks of such recordings,” Lavrov said.
Maria Zakharova, a Kremlin spokeswoman, complained: “When Macron called the Russian president, the entire conversation was recorded by journalists, who were filming it. This is an example of the odd way they interpret the word diplomacy.”
The state news agency, Ria Novosti, said: “For a long time the French have no longer been respecting diplomatic rules of negotiations.”
For once, western diplomats shared the Russian view. There was surprise in embassies in Paris that Macron had approved the dialogue for inclusion in the documentary by France 2, the equivalent to BBC1.
The two-hour A President, Europe and War also included snatches of Macron’s calls to Boris Johnson, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, and President Zelensky of Ukraine. Foreign leaders would be more guarded now when talking to Macron, diplomats said.