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Berlin and Kremlin Envoys to Meet over Ukraine, Says Source

A Russian service member drives a MT-LB multi-purpose amphibious armoured carrier during military drills at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia December 20, 2021. (Reuters)
A Russian service member drives a MT-LB multi-purpose amphibious armoured carrier during military drills at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia December 20, 2021. (Reuters)
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Berlin and Kremlin Envoys to Meet over Ukraine, Says Source

A Russian service member drives a MT-LB multi-purpose amphibious armoured carrier during military drills at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia December 20, 2021. (Reuters)
A Russian service member drives a MT-LB multi-purpose amphibious armoured carrier during military drills at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia December 20, 2021. (Reuters)

Senior German and Russian government officials have agreed to a rare in-person meeting next month in an effort to ease political tensions over Ukraine, a German government source said on Saturday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's foreign policy adviser Jens Ploetner and Russia's Ukraine negotiator Dmitry Kozak agreed to meet after a lengthy phone conversation on Thursday, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The German government has not made any official comment. A spokesman for Kozak declined to comment.

There have been a flurry of phone calls between western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months over Russia's military build-up on the Ukrainian border and resulting fears of an invasion.

In-person meetings between senior Western and Russian government officials have been few and far between, though US President Joe Biden held talks with President Putin in Geneva last June.

Since taking office this month, Scholz has emphasized the need for dialogue with Russia over its military build-up on the Ukrainian border while joining western allies in backing sanctions should Moscow invade.

Berlin doubts more than Washington whether Russia actually wants to attack Ukraine and is keen to de-escalate tensions, two government sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Critics accuse Germany of being beholden to Putin because of its need for Russian gas, attacking construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between the countries, bypassing Ukraine. Berlin says Nordstream 2 is not political and would be only one of several pipelines transporting Russian gas to Europe.

"The German side's goal remains to achieve a swift reactivation of the Normandy format," the German government source said, referring to multilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.

SPD parliamentary leader Rolf Mutzenich told Reuters the party was not "naive" and knew who it was dealing with, adding that it still believes that engagement could help to de-escalate the Ukraine situation.

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French Voters Propel Far-right National Rally to Strong Lead

A handout photo made available by the official X account of Marine Le Pen shows Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the National Rally party reacting at the end of the French election day in Paris, France, 01 July 2024. EPA/Cuenta Oficial Marine Le Pen
A handout photo made available by the official X account of Marine Le Pen shows Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the National Rally party reacting at the end of the French election day in Paris, France, 01 July 2024. EPA/Cuenta Oficial Marine Le Pen
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French Voters Propel Far-right National Rally to Strong Lead

A handout photo made available by the official X account of Marine Le Pen shows Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the National Rally party reacting at the end of the French election day in Paris, France, 01 July 2024. EPA/Cuenta Oficial Marine Le Pen
A handout photo made available by the official X account of Marine Le Pen shows Marine Le Pen, the candidate for the National Rally party reacting at the end of the French election day in Paris, France, 01 July 2024. EPA/Cuenta Oficial Marine Le Pen

The far-right National Rally leaped into a strong lead Sunday in France's first round of legislative elections, polling agencies projected, bringing the party closer to being able to form a government in round two and dealing a major slap to centrist President Emmanuel Macron and his risky decision to call the surprise ballot.
When he dissolved the National Assembly on June 9, after a stinging defeat at the hands of the National Rally in French voting for the European Parliament, Macron gambled that the anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism wouldn't repeat that success when France's own fate was in the balance.
But it didn't work out that way. With French polling agencies projecting that the National Rally and its allies got about one-third of the national vote on Sunday, Macron's prime minister warned that France could end up with its first far-right government since World War II if voters don't come together to thwart that scenario in round two next Sunday, The Associated Press reported.
“The extreme right is at the doors of power,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said. He twice described National Rally policy pledges as “disastrous” and said that in the second-round ballot, “not one vote should go to the National Rally. France does not deserve that."
French polling agencies' projections put Macron’s grouping of centrist parties a distant third in the first-round ballot, behind both the National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties that joined forces to keep it from winning power.
Securing a parliamentary majority would enable National Rally leader Marine Le Pen to install her 28-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, as prime minister and would crown her yearslong rebranding effort to make her party less repellent to mainstream voters. She inherited the party, then called the National Front, from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has multiple convictions for racist and antisemitic hate speech.
Still, the National Rally isn’t there yet. With another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remains uncertain.
Addressing a jubilant crowd waving French tricolor flags of blue, white and red, Le Pen called on her supporters and voters who didn't back her party in the first round to push it over the line and give it a commanding legislative majority. That scenario would force Bardella and Macron into an awkward power-sharing arrangement. Macron, first elected in 2017, has said he will not step down before his second term expires in 2027.
“The French have almost wiped out the ‘Macronist’ bloc,” Le Pen said. The results, she added, showed voters’ “willingness to turn the page after 7 years of contemptuous and corrosive power.”