Ukraine-Russia: Ukrainian government hits out at Macron calls to ‘not humiliate’ Russia

France's President Emmanuel Macron warned that Russia should not be humiliated.

Claims by French president Emmanuel Macron that Russia should not be “humiliated” in order to bring an end to conflict in Ukraine have been met with anger among Ukrainian politicians.

Mr Macron, who has spoken to Russian president Vladimir Putin regularly during the conflict in a bid to forge negotiations between the two parties, said ensuring that Russia was not humiliated would make it more possible to end the war through “diplomatic means”.

However, the Ukrainian government hit out at his words, saying that they only “humiliate France”.

Mr Macron not been to Kyiv to show support to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, as many other world leaders have been – although France has offered military and financial support to Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said: “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it. Because it is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives.”

Mr Macron’s comments were in an interview with a group of French regional newspapers.

He said: "We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means," Macron said in an interview to regional newspapers published on Saturday. "I am convinced that it is France's role to be a mediating power."

He added: "I think, and I told him, that he is making a historic and fundamental mistake for his people, for himself and for history.”