Emmanuel Macron: Next two weeks are critical for Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron said that the next two weeks will be crucial to reaching an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine following talks that took place on August 18 in Washington, writes Politico.

In an interview with the French television channel LCI, he emphasized that it is necessary to complete the preliminary work together with the United States in order to give real content to the security guarantees.

"There is a lot of work to be done in advance on the security guarantees. "The next 15 days are absolutely necessary to complete the work with the Americans and give real substance to these security guarantees," Macron quoted Politico as saying.

In a series of interviews with French and American media, the French president positively assessed US President Donald Trump's decision to provide Ukraine with "very good security guarantees."

"The big change in recent days is that he recognized the need to guarantee Ukraine's security," Macron stressed.

At the same time, Politico notes that the content of these guarantees remains unclear at this point. Macron specified that "the British, French, Germans, Turks and others are ready to conduct operations not on the front line, not provocatively, but operations to ensure security in the air, at sea and on land".

The United States and European countries are urgently developing security guarantees for Ukraine to create conditions for a possible meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.

After Zelensky and European leaders met with Trump at the White House, Russian officials began publicly rejecting European proposals for security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a potential peace agreement, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Although the Kremlin has not yet officially confirmed its agreement, a senior US administration official said that the meeting between Putin and Zelensky could take place in Hungary, and the French president had previously suggested Switzerland. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz added that this meeting will be scheduled for the next two weeks.