Bloomberg : It’s not the first time Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic freelancing has unraveled...

Bloomberg

It’s not the first time Emmanuel Macron’s diplomatic freelancing has unraveled.

The French president flew to Russia last year to win assurances from Vladimir Putin that he wouldn’t invade Ukraine. Two weeks later, he did just that.

Macron’s latest foray, to get China to goad Russia toward some kind of cease-fire, hit a wall last week when Beijing’s ambassador to France said former Soviet states don’t have sovereign status.

Key Reading:

 * Macron’s Push to Get China’s Help on Ukraine Is Unraveling Fast

 * Fury After Chinese Envoy Says Ex-Soviet States Not Sovereign

* Chinese Embassy Removes Interview Transcript on Ex-Soviet States

(Not: * işaretli yazıların tümü aboneler için)  

Follow our rolling coverage of the war in Ukraine.

China’s Foreign Ministry walked back those comments today, saying its position was unchanged. 

But Macron’s outreach to Beijing irked fellow NATO and European Union members, especially the alliances’ Baltic members, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which endured 40-plus years of Soviet rule during the Cold War.

They’ve said two things all along: You can’t negotiate with authoritarians; and while wars are usually settled at the negotiating table, they’re won on the battlefield.

Also, trying to skip ahead to a cease-fire risks undermining Western unity and playing into Putin’s hands.

The Russian president is betting Ukraine’s allies will suffer solidarity fatigue, and that time (abetted by a cost-of-living crisis he helped trigger that’s putting governments in Paris, London and Berlin under pressure) is on his side.

For Ukrainians, the war is a matter of the very existence of their nation. Kyiv is imploring its allies to provide it with more weapons as it prepares a spring counteroffensive to expel the invaders.

With military experts predicting the fighting may grind on for years, the international community has shown the limits of its effectiveness in trying to end the crisis.

Case in point: The United Nations Security Council, the forum responsible for maintaining global peace, will meet in New York today with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov presiding as the rotating chair. While UN member states have repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion, Moscow as a veto-wielding state is able to block demands to end its aggression.

As long as neither side is ready to stop fighting, no amount of geopolitical showboating can overcome the nature of war: Conflicts usually don’t end until one side has had enough. — Michael Winfrey

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Macron at the governor of Guangdong’s residence on April 7. Photographer: Jacques Witt/AFP/Getty Images

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Fighting across Sudan between the army and a paramilitary group intensified today, driving thousands of people from their homes and speeding up evacuations of diplomats and foreign nationals. Residents of the capital, Khartoum, faced attacks that are closing health facilities and exacerbating shortages of water, food and fuel.

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