‘Now possible’ to move forward

French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that after talks with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders he saw a path toward easing tensions.

Speaking at a joint press conference after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Macron said he believed it would be possible to make progress on two fronts.

Both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Macron saw on Monday, said they remained committed to the 2015 Minsk peace agreements on the country's separatist conflicts, the French leader said.

"We now have the possibility to make these negotiations move forward," Macron said.

And on tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow's military build-up on Ukraine's borders, Macron said: "I believe for my part that there are concrete, practical solutions that will allow us to move forward."

As Macron sought a diplomatic solution with Kyiv, US President Joe Biden ramped up the pressure on Moscow Monday by warning he would "end" the controversial new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if tanks rolled into Ukraine.

After talks with Zelensky yesterday, Macron said nobody was "naive" enough to believe that the tensions were not linked to the Russian deployments, calling them "unprecedented".

"In adopting this threatening posture, Russia decided to put pressure on the international community," Macron said.

"We cannot underestimate the moment of tension that we are living through," Macron said.

"We cannot resolve this crisis in a few hours of talks," he said. "It will be the day and the weeks and the months to come that will allow us to progress."