French President Emmanuel Macron said that he does not support the policy of trying to force regime change in Russia against Vladimir Putin.
Appearing at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron rejected the idea of trying to dethrone Vladimir Putin from his perch in the Kremlin.
Speaking in English, the French leader said: “Let’s be clear, I don’t believe for one second in regime change, and when I hear a lot of people invocating for regime change I ask them, ‘For which change? Who’s next? Who is your leader?’”
Mr Macron went on to note that other Western-backed regime change operations have often failed to achieve their geopolitical goals, and therefore there is no guarantee that a potential successor to Putin would not simply continue Russia’s efforts to push back NATO from its borders, possibly even taking a harder line than Putin.
While the prospect of regime change in Moscow has often been mooted in the establishment media in the West, most leaders have shied away from making a direct connection between the support for Ukraine on the battlefield and the desire to see Putin toppled.
Ye, one major Western leader did directly call for Putin’s removal last year: President of the United States Joe Biden, who said during a March trip to Poland that the Russian president was a “butcher”, adding: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”
Mr Biden later tried to walk back the comments, and the White House tried to clarify with the somewhat dubious explanation that Mr Biden was merely expressing the idea that “Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region” as opposed to “discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
Nevertheless, Biden’s comments were specifically criticised by President Macron at the time, who said bluntly: “I would not use those words.”
“Everything must be done to stop the situation from escalating… first a ceasefire and then the total withdrawal of [Russian] troops by diplomatic means,” he added.
Interestingly, as the invasion approaches its one-year anniversary, and months after his calls for a ceasefire, Mr Macron has now seemingly backed down from this position, and says that he believes it is too early for peace negotiations to begin.
Claiming that it is “not the time for dialogue’ with Russia, Macron said: “We absolutely need to intensify our support for… the Ukrainian people and its army and help them to launch a counter-offensive, which alone can allow credible negotiations.”
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka