A Kremlin spokesman has described as 'simply impossible' that any deal was agreed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron during their talks in Moscow on Monday over the Ukraine crisis, tempering upbeat comments by Macron as he visited Kyiv on Tuesday before travelling on to Berlin.
After a five-hour meeting in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, held in an attempt to defuse the crisis over fears of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin said Macron's proposals were a possible 'basis for further steps' adding that Russia 'will do everything to find compromises that suit everyone'.
French head of state will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday, the Elysée Palace said.
The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has not brought a stop to the activities of hackers and trolls bankrolled by various foreign governments, including Russia and China. In some cases hacking attacks have targeted institutions who are in the front line in the battle against the virus. Trolls meanwhile have been extolling the virtues of how authoritarian regimes have handled the health emergency. François Bougon and Matthieu Suc report.
At a press conference ahead of more than two hours of talks between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in southern France on Monday evening, Putin said he supported a plan for international talks to seek a resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, while Macron said their discussions would centre on the crises in Syria and Libya because "Russia has an essential role in these situations".
At a press conference ahead of their talks at the French President's official retreat on the Mediterranean coast on Monday, Emmanuel Macron tackled Russian President Vladimir Putin on the crackdown on recent opposition protests in Moscow, to which the Russian leader spoke of a toll of deaths and injuries in France's 'yellow vest' protests, adding that, 'We wouldn’t want such events to take place in the Russian capital'.
French President Emmanuel Macron will host his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for talks at the Fort de Bregançon, his official summer retreat in southern France, on Monday, ahead of the G7 leaders' meeting in Biarritz next weekend, from which Russia is excluded.
In a speech to the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that current world events represented 'one of the most difficult periods of our history', and called on Russia, which he said was 'an inalienable part of Europe' to join in dialogue, warning 'if we miss this moment then we really lose it forever'.
In a joint press conference in St Petersburg ahead of an annual economic forum on Friday, the Russian and French leaders reiterated their support for the Iran nuclear programme limitation deal after the recent US decision to withdraw from it, and that despite US President Donald Trump's decision to pull back from planned talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un negotiations over the latter's proposed denuclearisation of the peninsula should continue.
Russian spies in France are trying to recruit business people, diplomats and military personnel, using resources and methods similar to those used at the height of the Cold War. French counter-intelligence officials are meanwhile working hard to unmask the Russian agents. Though Russia and France are co-operating over antiterrorism issues, their respective intelligence agents are engaged in a parallel, largely hidden struggle, with French soil as the battleground. Matthieu Suc and Jacques Massey report.
French President Emmanuel Macron's office said he spoke by phone on Monday with newly re-elected President Vladimir Putin, when he voiced his hopes for a modernisation of Russia 'on the political, democratic, economic and social fronts', while also discussing Syria and calling for clarity over the nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent in Britain.
The head of France's cyber security agency says that the hack behind the massive leak of emails from Emmanuel Macron's campaign team on the eve of his election as president on May 7th was of such “simplicity” that it could have been carried out by “anyone”. It is therefore impossible, says Guillaume Poupard, to say whether Russian hacking groups with ties to the government in Moscow were implicated. However, as Agathe Duparc and Anastasia Kirilenko report, investigations by two independent websites in Moscow do indeed point to Russian involvement.
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