C T Online Desk: Emmanuel Macron has copped flak in recent days from Ukrainian officials after urging them not to ‘humiliate’ Russia, suggesting they should negotiate with Vladimir Putin to build an ‘off-ramp’ from a war he started.
So the French President may not have been surprised when he was shown the cold, or rather hard, shoulder by Zelensky on a visit to Kyiv, reports Daily Mail.
Macron was joined in the Ukrainian capital by his German, Italian and Romanian counterparts this morning, before being taken to suburbian Irpin to see firsthand the devastation wrought by Putin’s troops and evidence of their war crimes.
Ever the statesman, Macron denounced their ‘barbarism’ of the attacks and praised the courage of Irpin’s residents and others in the region who helped thwart Russia’s attempt to overrun the capital.
But his attempt to pull Ukraine’s President into a PR-friendly embrace at a joint press conference following the tour was not warmly received.
Zelensky looked as though he’d rather be fighting in the trenches of Severodonetsk when the smarmy French leader, dressed impeccably in his trademark navy blue suit, wrapped a crisply-laundered sleeve around his torso.
