France will continue to support Ukraine on all platforms: Macron

ANKARA

The French president on Friday said France will continue to support Ukraine on all platforms, hoping that talks for Ukraine’s accession to the European Union will start by the end of June.

France will continue to support Ukraine on all platforms, particularly “on the European level, to try to get the launch of the (EU) accession talks by the end of this month,” Emmanuel Macron told a joint news conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris.

Macron reiterated that France is neither waging war against Russia, and nor seeking escalation, but this does not mean that Russia will be allowed to impose limits on the Franco-Ukrainian military cooperation, or Ukraine’s right to defend itself.

He announced, in this context, a “support fund” worth €200 million ($216 million) for critical infrastructure in Ukraine.

Military aid to Ukraine

Macron described as “legitimate” Kyiv’s request for its soldiers to be trained in Ukrainian territory.

The president noted that this solution could be more effective given that Ukraine is now mobilizing stronger.

France is working on a “coalition” with other countries to send military instructors to Ukraine, Macron added, refusing to tell which countries.

“Many of our partners already gave their agreement,” he said.

Summit in Switzerland

President Zelenskyy, for his part, thanked France for its support and said that Europe must remain “an area of peace and freedom,” and not violence.

He said the summit in Switzerland next week would “surely be a step towards the end of the war.”

President Macron said he will attend the summit and plans to visit Ukraine.

Macron also noted that he expects the summit in Switzerland to be an “important step to build durable peace” in Ukraine.

The two countries signed four agreements in total, the first one about a fund for Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, the second on opening a bureau of the French Development Agency in Ukraine, and the third about progressing in the cooperation on the peaceful utilization of nuclear energy, and the last one on defense industry cooperation.