From WSJ today. Talks to continue/back on.
Quote:
Russia will extend its military drills with Belarus because of rising violence in Ukraine's Donbas region, the government in Minsk said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted a new round of talks with Kyiv amid warnings of an imminent Russian invasion.
Mr. Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron said after speaking on Sunday that they agreed to continue seeking a diplomatic solution. Russia has amassed as many as 190,000 troops on Ukraine's borders, including some 30,000 for exercises in Belarus that were slated to end Sunday. Moscow demands that Kyiv abandon its aspirations to join NATO and give Russian proxies a major say in Ukraine's future.
Mr. Macron said that Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany will resume talks in the so-called Normandy format based on proposals presented by Kyiv in recent days. He and Mr. Putin agreed on the "necessity to favor a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and to do everything to achieve it," according to the French account of the conversation. French and Russian foreign ministers are slated to meet in coming days, while other consultations will take place in Paris, the French account said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is separately scheduled to speak to Mr. Putin on Monday, according to a German official.
Mr. Macron also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Sunday's talks with Mr. Putin, his second conversation with the Ukrainian leader in two days. The French leader commended Mr. Zelensky on his "composure and his determination to prevent escalation."
The Kremlin, in its statement Sunday, blamed Mr. Zelensky for refusing to implement the so-called Minsk agreements that ended major combat in Donbas in 2015, and thatin Moscow's interpretationcould give Russian proxies a significant say in Ukraine's new setup, potentially halting the country's alignment with the West.
Still, the Kremlin said Mr. Putin agreed to "intensify the search for solutions through diplomatic means," including by holding another meeting on the Minsk accords between the four nations' senior advisers in the Normandy format. While the first such meeting in Paris in January led to some progress, the second in Berlin earlier this month ended in failure.
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