The French Foreign Minister accused Russia of "lies"

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet said Russia distorted the words of Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu in a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu about negotiations on Ukraine, and about the lack of further interest in dialogue with the Russian Federation after that.

In an interview with France 24, he said:

“It is not in our best interest to have discussions with Russian officials at this time because the press releases and reports they are filing are lies.”

Head of the French Foreign Ministry addedthat trust must be restored between countries for possible dialogue in the future. Last week, Reuters, citing a French government source, reportedthat, contrary to Russia's statements, France did not express a “willingness for dialogue” to end the war in Ukraine during a telephone conversation between the two countries' defense ministers.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense issued statement that the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, discussed the topic of the war in Ukraine with Sebastien Lecornu. It is alleged that during these negotiations a “willingness for dialogue” to resolve the conflict was noted:

“The readiness for dialogue on Ukraine was noted. The starting points could be based on the Istanbul Peace Initiative. Holding a meeting in Geneva without Russia’s participation is pointless.”

In turn, the French Ministry of Defense confirmed that Lecornu discussed the war in Ukraine with Shoigu, and the French minister reiterated that Paris condemns the Russian invasion and will support Kyiv “as long as it takes to bring peace and security to the European continent.”

The reason for calling Shoigu and the main topic of discussion was terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, which took the lives of 145 people. Lecornu expressed solidarity with the relatives of the victims of the attack, which was claimed by an ISIS cell, and announced France's readiness to strengthen cooperation with Russia in order to counter the threat of terrorism. At the same time, he stressed that Paris does not have any information indicating involvement Ukraine to attack Crocus, and called on the Russian authorities to stop exploiting this topic to strengthen pro-war sentiment.

This is the first direct conversation between the defense ministers of the two countries since October 2022, when Shoigu called his colleagues from Western countries, claiming that Ukraine allegedly wants to detonate a “dirty” nuclear bomb. After this, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) checked three Ukrainian sites pointed out by Russia, but did not find any signs of the creation of such weapons there.

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