The preceding tweet obviously prompted Roland Oliphant to re-up one of his dispatches from November 2014. Definitely an interesting a re-read:
History repeating itself?
Good morning.
We'll get the live blog rolling again today with some reaction to Emmanuel Macron's victory in the French presidential election and what it might mean for Ukraine:
Here's an excerpt:
The French elections were especially important for Ukraine, since France is a member of the Normandy format established to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, and Front Nationale leader Marine Le Pen’s victory would have meant an irremediable turn for the Donbas peace talks.
As in most European capitals, Le Pen’s defeat seen as a victory for Kyiv. However, the victory of centrist Emmanuel Macron leaves Ukrainians with only a cautious optimism, mostly because of his largely unknown stance on Ukraine.
Throughout the entire campaign, Macron scarcely commented on Ukraine and the way he sees relations with this huge eastern neighbour of the EU. Nevertheless, Macron briefly touched upon the conflict in eastern Ukraine and made it perfectly clear that de-escalation is a must. Also, earlier in his campaign he mentioned that fulfilment of the provisions of the Minsk agreement, signed to end the war in the Donbas region, is the only way for Russia to get rid of the economic sanctions imposed by the EU. His words didn’t sound new as they repeated the position of other members of the Normandy peace talks.
In this case, no news is good news since Macron’s victory means the continuation of France’s previous stance in talks, while Le Pen would have meant a turn towards Russia. The Normandy talks may not have resulted in any breakthrough so far, but it is very important for Ukraine that this diplomatic platform isn’t turned into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet theatre.
Apart from Donbas, we don’t know much what the future of Ukrainian-French relations will be. All the signs show Ukraine will maintain decent working relations with France with good chances to evolve. However, France’s position towards Eastern Europe will be largely determined by the temperature of relations between the Elysee Palace and the Kremlin.
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweets his congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his "spectacular victory" in the French presidential election and says he's counting on "ambitious cooperation" with Paris and intensifying the Normandy format.