French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned in Kyiv on Saturday that if Russia defeated Ukraine on the battlefield it would sow “chaos” in the international system.
He spoke the same day Russian forces announced they had captured another village in eastern Ukraine as they continued their steady advance.
Barrot’s visit, aimed at underlining Paris’s unflinching support for Ukraine, comes at the end of a week in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled his “victory plan” to defeat Russia, again calling for beefed-up Western backing.
“A Russian victory would consecrate the law of the strongest and precipitate the international order towards chaos,” Barrot said alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga.
Asked by a Ukrainian journalist whether Paris supported Zelensky’s “victory plan”, Barrot said: “We support the victory plan because we have been alongside Ukraine for nearly 1,000 days.”
During the rest of his remarks, Barrot only used the more general expression “peace plan” when referring to the possibility of bringing about an end to the conflict.
Paris, like Ukraine’s other Western backers, has not outlined an official position in response to Zelensky’s proposals and is studying the details.
After meeting Barrot in Kyiv, Zelensky said he was “grateful to France for its support of the victory plan” which can “bring real diplomacy and a just peace closer.”
“The meeting was exactly what we needed,” he said in his evening address.
– ‘Victory plan’ –
The central plank of Zelensky’s plan is for Ukraine to be given an immediate invitation to join the NATO military alliance.
Barrot said Paris was “open” to the idea of issuing an invitation to join NATO and was discussing it with other members of the alliance.
Zelensky’s blueprint also rejects territorial concessions and calls for allies to lift restrictions on using donated long-range weapons against military sites inside Russia.
It also proposes deploying a “non-nuclear strategic deterrence package” on Ukrainian territory.
Since Russia invaded in February 2022, Kyiv has outlined several proposals, initiatives and principles that it says should underpin any end to the conflict.
In June, almost 80 countries endorsed a 10-point “peace formula” proposed by Ukraine that said its territorial integrity must be respected.
Ahead of Barrot’s visit, France’s foreign ministry said Paris welcomed the objectives that underpinned the latest initiative, which details how Kyiv believes it can win the war.
Zelensky last week undertook a whistlestop tour of Europe to brief key leaders, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, before outlining some details of the plan publicly.
US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Germany, France and Britain on Friday voiced their “resolve to continue supporting Ukraine in its efforts to secure a just and lasting peace”.
– NKorea troops –
For Ukraine, Sybiga also warned Saturday that the involvement of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia carried a “huge threat of further escalation”. There was a risk of the war “going beyond the current borders and boundaries”.
Seoul’s spy agency said Friday that North Korea had decided to send “large-scale” troops to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine, reporting that 1,500 special forces were already in Russia’s Far East and undergoing training.
Russia on Saturday claimed its latest territorial advance, saying it had taken the village of Zoryane in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow’s forces have been steadily advancing across the eastern Donetsk region, even as Kyiv continues to mount its own cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk border region.
Russia has been concentrating its offensive on Kurakhove, home to about 20,000 people before Russia invaded, and the strategic prize of Pokrovsk, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) to the north.
Ukraine has struggled with manpower and ammunition shortages in the face of Moscow’s better-equipped military.
France’s armed forces minister Sebastien Lecornu said separately that Paris was ordering new equipment for Ukraine’s army using 300 million euros of interest recovered from frozen Russian assets.
The new delivery will include 12 Caesar cannons, Lecornu told the Sunday edition of La Tribune.
burs-jc/jj
