The Minister of Foreign Affairs of France, Stéphane Séjournay, said that currently talks with representatives of Russia are not in the country’s interests. This happened after the Russian Federation distorted the contents of the conversation between the Ministers of Defense Sebastian Lecornu and Sergei Shoigu.
“I don’t think it’s in our interests to discuss anything with Russian leaders right now. Because the press releases and reports that they submit are lies,” Sejourne said.
Therefore, according to Sejourne, first of all, it is necessary to restore trust between the countries, as well as to see “developments on the battlefield in Ukraine”, which would contribute to the restoration of interstate relations.
“Today there is no such thing,” said the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.
On April 3, French Minister of Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu had a telephone conversation with his Russian colleague Sergei Shoigu for the first time since October 2022.
The French Ministry of Defense claimed that during a conversation with Shoigu, Lecornu expressed “strong condemnation” of the attack by the Islamic State on a concert hall in the Moscow suburbs on March 22 and expressed “solidarity” with the victims and their families.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Sebastian Lecornu expressed his readiness for dialogue regarding the war against Ukraine during a conversation with Shoigu. The Reuters agency, citing unnamed sources among French officials, denied these statements of the Russian Ministry of Defense, calling them “false”.
