European leaders on Tuesday pledged unity in their goal of averting war on the continent, as France's President Emmanuel Macron said he saw a path forward on easing tensions with Russia over Ukraine after an urgent round of shuttle diplomacy, France24 reports.
Arriving in Berlin after two days of talks in Kyiv and Moscow, Macron urged continued "firm dialogue" with Russia as the only way to defuse fears Russia could invade its ex-Soviet neighbour.
The French leader, who on Monday had a five-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin, said the Russian president had told him that Russia "would not be the source of an escalation", despite amassing more than 100,000 troops and military hardware on Ukraine's border.
Macron said he now saw the "possibility" for talks involving Moscow and Kyiv over the festering conflict in eastern Ukraine to move forward, and "concrete, practical solutions" to lower tensions between Russia and the West.
"We must find ways and means together to engage in a firm dialogue with Russia," he said in Berlin, where he was to debrief German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish leader Andrzej Duda on his Kremlin meeting and his talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
Standing alongside Macron and Duda, Scholz stressed the trio "are united by the goal of maintaining peace in Europe through diplomacy and clear messages and the shared will to act in unison".
The Polish leader said he believed war could still be averted.
"We have to find a solution to avoid war," said Duda. "I believe that we will achieve it. In my opinion what's most important today is unity and solidarity."
EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell was cautiously optimistic, saying Macron's visit to Moscow brought "an element of detente" but "has not produced a miracle".
"As far as people are willing to sit at the table and talk I think that there is a hope for not going into military confrontation," he told reporters at the end of a visit to Washington.
