KYIV: French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he had convinced Russia’s Vladimir Putin not to escalate the crisis around Ukraine, ahead of talks in Kyiv aimed at defusing fears Moscow could invade.
During a five-hour meeting over dinner in the Kremlin Monday, Macron said he offered Putin “concrete security guarantees” as the West scrambles to deal with Russia’s massive troop build-up on Ukraine’s border.
“I obtained that there will be no degradation nor escalation,” the French leader told journalists as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“My aim was to freeze the game, to prevent an escalation and open up new perspectives,” Macron said. “This objective for me is fulfilled.”
Putin — who has demanded sweeping security guarantees from NATO and the United States — told Macron that Moscow would “do everything to find compromises that suit everyone.”
He said several proposals put forward by Macron could “form a basis for further steps” on easing the crisis over Ukraine, but did not give any details.
At the same time as sending its military hardware to Ukraine’s borders, Moscow issued demands the West says are unacceptable, including barring Ukraine from joining NATO and rolling back alliance forces in eastern Europe.
The French presidency said Macron’s counter proposals include an engagement from both sides not to take any new military action, the launching of a strategic dialogue and efforts to revive the peace process in Kyiv’s conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
It also said an agreement would ensure the withdrawal of some 30,000 Russian soldiers from Belarus at the end of joint military exercises later this month.
“I didn’t think for a second that he was going to make any gestures yesterday,” Macron said of Putin.
Macron — who was the first Western leader to meet Putin since the crisis began in December — faces a tough task trying to convince a wary Zelensky to accept any compromises.
Kyiv has laid out three “red lines” that it says it will not cross to find a solution — no compromise over Ukraine’s territorial integrity, no direct talks with the separatists and no interference in its foreign policy.
Moscow is pressuring Ukraine to offer concessions to the Russian-backed rebels who have been fighting Kyiv since 2014 in a conflict that has claimed over 13,000 lives.
Putin baited Zelensky by calling him “my beauty” as he used a controversial idiom to insist Kyiv must stick to a tattered 2015 peace deal.
The Russian leader warned Macron’s talks in Kyiv would “not be easy either” and said he planned to speak again with the French leader after his meeting with Zelensky.
Ukraine says the Kremlin wants to use the two breakaway eastern regions it supports as leverage to keep the country under Moscow’s sway.
Russia has denied it is planning an invasion — but the US warns it has massed 70 percent of the forces it would need for a large-scale incursion.
The West is nervously eyeing upcoming drills starting Thursday that have seen Russia dispatch thousands of troops to Belarus to the north of Kyiv.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told local television that Kyiv was planning to hold its own parallel exercises across the country involving Western-supplied anti-tank missiles and Turkish combat drones.
As Macron sought a diplomatic solution with Kyiv, US President Joe Biden ramped up the pressure on Moscow Monday by warning he would “end” the controversial new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if tanks rolled into Ukraine.
Biden’s declaration at a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was the bluntest so far on the fate of the massive pipeline, which is complete but has yet to begin funnelling natural gas.
Scholz was less direct and said only that Berlin was “united” with Washington in imposing sweeping sanctions on Russia, declining to mention the pipeline by name.
Scholz will be in Moscow and Kyiv next week for talks with Putin and Zelensky.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote in The Times that London was pushing allies to be ready with sanctions “the moment the first toecap of the first Russian soldier crosses” into Ukraine.
He said Britain was bolstering its NATO deployment in Estonia and weighing sending jets and warships “to protect southeastern Europe.”
Macron in Kyiv says no ‘escalation’ from Putin
https://arab.news/bwgc3
Macron in Kyiv says no ‘escalation’ from Putin
Trump signals interest in easing tensions, but Minneapolis sees little change on the streets
- Immigration enforcement operations and confrontations with activists continued Wednesday in Minneapolis and St. Paul
MINNEAPOLIS: President Donald Trump seemed to signal a willingness to ease tensions in Minneapolis after a second deadly shooting by federal immigration agents, but there was little evidence Wednesday of any significant changes following weeks of harsh rhetoric and clashes with protesters.
The strain was evident when Trump made a leadership change by sending his top border adviser to Minnesota to take charge of the immigration crackdown. That was followed by seemingly conciliatory remarks about the Democratic governor and mayor.
Trump said he and Gov. Tim Walz, whom he criticized for weeks, were on “a similar wavelength” following a phone call. After a conversation with Mayor Jacob Frey, the president praised the discussion and declared that “lots of progress is being made.”
But on city streets, there were few signs of a shift. Immigration enforcement operations and confrontations with activists continued Wednesday in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
A group of protesters blew whistles and pointed out federal officers in a vehicle on a north Minneapolis street. When the officers’ vehicle moved, a small convoy of activists followed in their cars for a few blocks until the officers stopped again.
When Associated Press journalists got out of their car to document the encounter, officers with the federal Bureau of Prisons pushed one of them, threatened them with arrest and told them to get back in their car despite the reporters’ identifying themselves as journalists. Officers from multiple federal agencies have been involved in the enforcement operations.
From their car, the AP journalists saw at least one person being pepper sprayed and one detained, though it was unclear if that person was the target of the operation or a protester. Agents also broke car windows.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is visiting Minnesota, said 16 people were arrested Wednesday on charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement in the state. She said more arrests were expected.
“NOTHING will stop President Trump and this Department of Justice from enforcing the law,” Bondi said in a social media post.
Messages seeking comment were left with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.
Woman tells agents: ‘They’re good neighbors’
On Wednesday afternoon in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, half a dozen agents went to a house in a small residential neighborhood.
One agent knocked on the door of the home repeatedly. Another told the AP they were seeking a man who had been twice deported and was convicted of domestic abuse. The agent said the man had run into the home and the agents lacked a judicial warrant to get inside.
Some federal immigration officers have asserted sweeping power to arrest someone considered illegally present or otherwise deportable using an administrative warrant but without a judge’s warrant. The key difference in the two warrants is whether agents can forcibly enter a private property to make an arrest, as they were captured on video doing in Minneapolis earlier this month.
A handful of activists blew whistles at the agents in Brooklyn Center. One agent said: “They’d rather call the police on us than to help us. Go figure.”
As the agents were preparing to leave, a woman called out to them saying, “You need to know they’re good neighbors.”
Kari Rod told the AP that she didn’t know these neighbors well, but they had come to her garage sale, kept their yard clean and waved hello when she drove by. She didn’t believe enforcement agents to be speaking the truth about whom they arrest, including another neighbor whom she said was deported to Laos last summer.
“I don’t trust a single thing they said about who they are,” Rod said. “From my interactions, I know them way better than anyone else does, any one of those federal agents.”
Immigrants are ‘still very worried’
Many immigrant families are still fearful of leaving their homes, and Latino businesses are still closed, said Daniel Hernandez, who owns the Minneapolis grocery store Colonial Market. He also runs a popular Facebook page geared toward informing the Hispanic community in the Twin Cities.
While Colonial Market is open, all but one of the dozen immigrant-run businesses that rented space inside have closed since late December, and none has plans to reopen, Hernandez said.
“The reality is the community is still very worried and afraid,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez referenced Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who helped lead the administration’s crackdown in the Twin Cities and who has reportedly been assigned elsewhere.
Bovino “was removed, but the tactics so far are still the same,” Hernandez said. “Nobody now is trusting the government with those changes.”
The federal enforcement extended to the city’s Ecuadorian consulate, where a federal law enforcement officer tried to enter before being blocked by employees.
Judge warns ICE about not complying with federal orders
In Minnesota federal court, the issue of ICE not complying with court orders came to the fore as Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz said the agency had violated 96 court orders in 74 cases since Jan. 1.
“This list should give pause to anyone — no matter his or her political beliefs — who cares about the rule of law,” he wrote. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”
Schiltz earlier this week ordered ICE’s acting director to personally appear in his courtroom Friday after the agency failed to obey an order to release an Ecuadorian man from detention in Texas. The judge canceled the order after the agency freed the man.
The judge, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, warned ICE that future noncompliance may result in future orders requiring the personal appearances of Acting Director Todd Lyons or other government officials.
ICE didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Veteran visits sidewalk memorial
Elsewhere on Wednesday, Donnie McMillan placed a cardboard sign reading “In remembrance of my angel” at the makeshift memorial where Alex Pretti was shot.
The Vietnam veteran knelt to pay his respects and saluted to honor the nurse whom he said he remembered seeing during his frequent visits to the Veterans Affairs hospital where Pretti worked.
“I feel like I’ve lost an angel right here,” McMillan, 71, said, pointing to the growing sidewalk memorial covered in flowers, candles and signs. “This is not the way we should operate.”
Also Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said two federal agents involved in Pretti’s death have been on leave since Saturday, when the shooting happened.
US Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, spoke to journalists one day after a man attacked her during a town hall meeting by squirting a strong-smelling substance on her as she denounced the Trump administration.
“What is unfolding in our state is not accidental. It is part of a coordinated effort to target Black and brown, immigrant and Muslim communities through fear, racial profiling and intimidation,” Omar said. “This administration’s immigration agenda is not about law enforcement — it is about making people feel they do not belong.”
