A visit by President Emmanuel Macron to Ukraine should take place in the coming weeks, the French Presidency said on Sunday (10 March), the third time a planned trip to the country has been postponed since February.

Macron had initially said he planned go in February to sign a bilateral security accord with President Volodymr Zelenskyy. That was postponed with Zelenskyy eventually coming to Paris to conclude the accord.

Zelenskyy goes to Paris, Berlin to sign bilateral security deals

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet his German and French counterparts on Friday (16 February) to sign bilateral security arrangements following up on their G7 July commitments, as Russia’s war against the country enters its third year.

Diplomats said a second date had been planned at the start of March before being pushed back to later this week.

“The two heads of state agreed to remain in close contact, notably regarding the president’s visit to Ukraine, which should happen in the coming weeks,” the French presidency said after the two leaders spoke by phone earlier on Sunday.

The postponement comes just days after a Russian missile missed Ukraine’s president and the prime minister of Greece by hundreds of metres when it slammed into port infrastructure in the Black Sea city of Odesa. Macron had also been due to visit Odesa.

Russia hits Ukraine’s port of Odesa during Zelenskyy and Greek PM visit

A Russian missile missed Ukraine’s president and the prime minister of Greece by hundreds of metres on Wednesday (6 March) when it slammed into port infrastructure in the Black Sea city of Odesa.

Macron has in recent weeks adopted a tougher position on Russia accusing it of being more aggressive towards France and Europe and vowing that Moscow had to be defeated.

He has called on European allies to do more urgently to help Ukraine and faced a backlash from many Western allies after he said the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out.

Two diplomatic sources said the French presidency was considering whether to broaden out the trip to Ukraine to include other Western heads of state to join Macron rather than a simple bilateral trip as an effort to show unity among allies and solidarity with Ukraine.

Ukraine rebuffs Pope’s ‘white flag’ comment

Ukraine on Sunday rebuffed Pope Francis’s call to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, with President Zelenskyy saying the pontiff was engaging in “virtual mediation” and his foreign minister saying Kyiv would never capitulate.

Francis said that when things were going badly for a party to a conflict one had to show the “courage of the white flag” and negotiate. The pope’s interview was believed to be the first time Francis has used terms like “white flag” or “defeated” in discussing the Ukraine war, though he has referred in the past to the need for talks.

Zelenskyy made no direct reference to Francis or his comments but mentioned religious figures helping inside Ukraine.

“They support us with prayer, with their discussion and with deeds. This is indeed what a church with the people is,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

“Not 2,500 km away, somewhere, virtual mediation between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, writing on the X messaging platform, said that the strong person in any dispute “stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations’”.

“Our flag is a yellow and blue one,” Kuleba wrote in English, referring to the Ukrainian national flag. “This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags.”

The pope has upset Ukrainian officials several times in the war, including his call last year to Russian youth to take pride as heirs of tsars like Peter the Great, held up by President Vladimir Putin as an example to justify his actions in Ukraine.

European officials supporting Ukraine in efforts to evict Russian troops denounced the pope’s latest comments.

“How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine?” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics, also writing on X, said:

“One must not capitulate in face of evil, one must fight it and defeat it, so that the evil raises the white flag and capitulates.”

Read more with Euractiv

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