European countries have issued an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin to accept a 30-day ceasefire or face more sanctions. [Getty]
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that European countries would impose new sanctions on Russia within days if Moscow did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“Our intention is to impose sanctions” if Russia fails to comply with a ceasefire in Ukraine proposed by Kyiv’s European allies, Macron said during an interview with TF1 television.
On Saturday, the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Poland called on Russia to accept a 30-day unconditional ceasefire starting Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to personally attend Russia-Ukraine talks in Turkey on Thursday, but Moscow has so far not said who will go.
The European Union has already imposed 16 rounds of sanctions on Russia since Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
A 17th round is to be adopted next Tuesday. The financial sector and hydrocarbons have been largely spared by the sanctions.
Macron also stressed that “no legal framework” existed to seize frozen Russian assets, and it was “not a good solution”.
The French president said that Ukraine acknowledges it cannot retake all the territory seized by Russia since 2014 and warned that the West did not want a “Third World War”.
“We must help Ukraine defend itself but we do not want to unleash a Third World War,” Macron said. “The war must cease and Ukraine must be in the best possible situation to go into negotiations,” he added.
“Even the Ukrainians have the clear-sightedness to say they do not have the capacity to retake everything that has been taken since 2014,” he added.
Ahead of the 2022 full-scale invasion, Russia in 2014 annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and backed forces which seized parts of two eastern Ukrainian regions.
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