Condemnation of a rhetoric considered as going to war, denunciation of referendums that hold “dummy” and, moreover, “illegal”, in the occupied Ukrainian territories, possibility of sanctions against their organizers. Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna sternly rebuked the Kremlin during her trip to Kyiv on Tuesday.
France will not “walk away from its principles”
Participating in a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, he first listed France’s complaints against Moscow:
“The Russian president has launched a rhetorical escalation by decreeing the partial mobilization of the Russian population – a population that obviously no longer supports him – by announcing the organization of false referendums in the occupied regions or by adopting a rhetorical escalation on the nuclear issue. .” “All this will not distract us from our principles or our goal,” he promised.
Recalling Emmanuel Macron’s words at the United Nations last Tuesday, he argued: “And I want to repeat today in kyiv what we said in New York, on the sidelines of the General Assembly and during the UN Security Council meeting: If Russia continues with the organization of these illegal referendums, the European Union will continue sanctions with the full support of my country”.
The results of the referendum are expected at the end of the week.
Along with the minister’s statements, Peter Stanno, spokesman for Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy, also stressed at the same time during his daily press conference in Brussels: “There will be consequences for all the people who participated in the organization of these illegal referendums”. And who supported them?
If neither Catherine Colonna nor the European official revealed the nature of the sanctions in question, we should soon know about them. Indeed, the referendums on annexation to Russia organized since Friday by Moscow in the four provinces of Kherson, Zaporijjia, Donetsk and Lugansk – the first two occupied by the Russians and the last administered by two puppet republics – end this Tuesday.
The results of these consultations sought by Vladimir Putin and led by the Russian authorities should be announced by the end of the week.
Source: BFM TV
