Moscow/Paris, Feb 10 (.) Improving its ties with Europe, Russia has established high-level diplomatic contact with France, confirmed Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, adding that this contact could escalate to the highest level of diplomatic communication if allowed to progress.
“Indeed, contacts have taken place (we can confirm this), which, if it is desired and necessary, could help for a fairly rapid establishment of dialogue at the highest level. So far, we have not received any indication that this desire exists,” he said.
This marks a significant escalation of diplomatic communication between Western Europe and the Kremlin since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. While Paris has been attempting to re-establish high-level diplomatic contact with Moscow in the past four years, its efforts have been erratic and inconsistent, with contacts barring limited-level communications at both sides remaining largely severed.
His comments came as France has been attempting to rebuild structured, technical-level channels with Russia, given the recent change in the US foreign policy where Washington and Moscow have significantly improved bilateral communications, in order to ensure that European interests are not sidelined.
Earlier, Macron stated that Paris had re-established technical communication channels with Moscow, and amid the change in the US foreign policy and had actively spoken about the advisability of restoring dialogue and the need to build a new European security architecture together with Russia.
Peskov said that Russia has taken note of French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements about the need to resume relations with Russia, adding that these statements appealed to the Kremlin.
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