Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Paris on Friday, his spokesman said, for talks with President Emmanuel Macron on ramping up pressure on Russia.
The visit comes as talks brokered between Kyiv and Moscow by the United States to end the four-year invasion have been derailed by the US-Israeli war with Iran.
“The president is already in Paris,” Zelensky’s spokesman Sergiy Nykyforov told reporters, including AFP journalists, adding the two leaders were expected to meet early afternoon local time and hold a press conference on Zelensky’s 12th visit to France since the war started.
The Kremlin said earlier this week that the planned meeting would obstruct the peace process and that the “very idea of trying to put pressure on Russia is absurd”.
The talks between Macron and Zelensky will focus on increasing sanctions pressure on Russia by targeting its “shadow fleet” of tankers used to transport oil in breach of sanctions imposed over the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the French presidency has said.
US President Donald Trump said this week that some oil sanctions would be lifted as part of attempts to keep international oil prices down, without mentioning a specific country, after his administration previously signalled it would roll back restrictions on oil exports from Russia.
The US government has temporarily eased economic sanctions to allow Russian oil currently stranded at sea to be sold to India until April 3.
The Ukrainian president on Thursday travelled to Romania where he deepened defence ties and agreed to launch joint drone production with Bucharest.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sparked the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II, forcing the displacement of millions and leaving hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead on both sides.
Zelensky’s visit comes as European Union member Hungary blocked a vital 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) EU loan to Ukraine as well as a fresh round of sanctions on Russia.
Hungary and Slovakia have accused Kyiv of deliberately delaying reopening the Druzhba pipeline, which pumps Russian oil to the two landlocked states and Ukraine says was damaged by Russian strikes in January.
Brussels said Thursday it had proposed a mission to inspect the blocked oil pipeline, and was waiting for Kyiv to respond.
Zelensky said last week it could take four to six weeks to make the pipeline operational again.
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