“Calls to avoid insulting Russia can only embarrass France and any other country that asks for it,” said Dmytro Kuleba, Ukrainian Foreign Minister. He added: “Russia is one that is humiliating itself.”

Kuleba’s statement was direct response to French President Emmanuel Macron .’s remarks who asked to avoid insulting Putin. “Russia must not be humiliated so that when hostilities cease, we can find a way out through diplomatic channels,” the Frenchman said.

Kuleba emphatically replied: “We should all focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives.”

Macron has repeatedly warned against a “verbal escalation” and against Moscow’s “contempt” in any solution to the conflict, although he has also backed European sanctions and called for the withdrawal of Russian troops.

This is not the first time Macron has come under the spotlight for his statements about the conflict and his conversations with Putin, but the Frenchman has assured that he is doing everything he can to seek diplomatic mediation.

In this context, It is also claimed that he did not visit kyiv to express his explicit support for Volodymyr Zelensky.

Prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Macron traveled to Kyiv on February 8, a day after visiting Moscow as part of his failed efforts to prevent conflict between the two neighbours. Since then, he has not returned to Ukraine, which has become a pilgrimage center for Western leaders — such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Canada, Justin Trudeau, or Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — to express his support for Kyiv.

In March and April, he justified him in presidential elections and ruled out using the bombed streets of the Ukrainian capital as campaign finance, but after his re-election on April 24, his silence raised questions.

“He could have done it the day after his election. The time has come for him to do so,” said his predecessor in office, Franois Hollande of the Socialists, on Wednesday, two days after French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna traveled to kyiv.

François Heisbourg, foreign policy expert and adviser to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, confirmed that the leaders of France, Germany and Italy, the three main EU economies and powers, were conspicuous by their absence.

“The three who haven’t left are very well known,” Heisbourg stressed to AFP, pointing to suspicions they might want to end the conflict soon, although Macron has always said that the terms of any agreement depend on Ukraine.

“I don’t think France is trying to ‘calm Russia’… but the absence of Macron’s visit is still very strange,” former British ambassador to Paris Peter Ricketts recently wrote on Twitter.

Sometimes, Zelensky has criticized his French counterpart, whom he even says is afraid of Putin. “He wanted to get results from mediation between Russia and Ukraine, but he got nothing,” Zelensky told Italian channels in mid-May.

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