Ukraine war: Macron slams Russian invasion, hours after brokering nuclear inspection deal
French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia launched a "brutal attack" on Ukraine in an imperialist, revanchist violation of international law.
Macron made the comments during a ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of Allied landings in Nai-occupied Provence during World War II, and just hours after he spoke to Putin and helped broker a deal to allow UN nuclear inspectors to visit a critical plant in Ukraine.
Macron, who tried tirelessly but unsuccessfully to prevent the invasion and long vaunted the importance of dialogue with Putin, has grown increasingly critical of the Russian president as the war bears on.
He warned French citizens that the resulting energy and economic crisis confronting Europe isn’t over, calling it “the price of our freedom and our values.”
“Since Vladimir Putin launched his brutal attack on Ukraine, war has returned to European soil, a few hours away from us," Macron said Friday.
Macron said Putin is seeking to impose his “imperialist will” on Europe, conjuring “phantoms of the spirit of revenge” in a “flagrant violation of the integrity of states.”
Earlier on Friday the Russian government has agreed that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can visit Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.
The plant has been occupied by Russian troops for months and experts say shelling in and around the complex poses a grave risk of nuclear incident.
The new, tentative, agreement came after a phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron.
It was their 20th conversation this year but their first in three months.
Putin said he feared that bombing in the area would eventually lead to a "large-scale disaster," even though
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