France and Germany will send their foreign ministers to Ukraine next month for four-way talks with Russia and Ukraine to calm tensions in Eastern Europe.
Jean-Yves Le Drian and Annalena Baerbock will make the trip on February 7 and 8, with Paris and Berlin seeking a diplomatic solution as military forces build up on the Ukraine-Russia border.
Mr Le Drian said on Saturday that France was continuing its “mobilisation to de-escalate tension” after he spoke to Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.
Mr Le Drian said this would include talks in the Normandy format, a term for four-power mediation between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
Representatives of those four countries met in Paris last week for the first time since 2019, raising hopes in Paris that dialogue was making progress.
France, where a presidential election is looming, and Germany have both spoken of the need for dialogue to ease tensions.
“We are obviously convinced that it's through dialogue, through political and diplomatic solutions, that we must solve this conflict,” French Defence Minister Florence Parly said.
Russia indicated a preference for talks with the US on Friday after describing America’s written security proposals as preferable to those submitted by Nato.
But European diplomats have been keen to pull their weight and prevent the former Cold War superpowers, the US and Russia, from deciding their fate alone.
Tensions were raised further when Russia imposed travel bans on EU officials, in a move condemned by Brussels as lacking legal justification.
“With it, Russia continues to fuel a climate of tensions in Europe instead of contributing to de-escalation,” European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said.
The French and German ministers will travel in the week after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to go to Eastern Europe to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
European powers have threatened Russia with sanctions if it attacks Ukraine, but rejected Moscow’s demands to stop Nato expansion on its borders.
Russia expressed frustration on this point on Friday, with Mr Putin telling French President Emmanuel Macron that the Kremlin’s concerns were being ignored.
Nato said that if Russia wanted fewer troops on its borders, its military manoeuvres were achieving the opposite.
Mr Kuleba said he was looking to European neighbours for ways to mitigate security risks to Ukraine, as fears that Russia will invade its ex-Soviet neighbour continue.
Moscow denies intending to do this, but has stationed more than 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine and was accused of a cyber attack on Ukrainian government ministries this month.
France and Ukraine agreed that it was “important to stay vigilant and firm” and work on diplomatic solutions, Mr Kuleba said.
Nato said it did not expect to send troops to Ukraine in the event of war, but is ready to bolster the defences of other Eastern European countries.
F-16 fighter jets from Belgium and Poland, two members of the alliance, flew over the Baltic nations as part of what Nato calls an air policing mission.
Denmark is sending F-16s to Lithuania, in what the latter country’s President Gitanas Nauseda said was a “splendid example of allied unity and solidarity”.
The Kremlin, in turn, is positioning military vehicles on the territory of its ally, Belarus, which like Russia is under EU sanctions.
Some Russian units and vehicles have mobilised to areas near Belarus's southern border with Ukraine, which is about 75 kilometres from Kiev.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president, said joint drills would take place next month but that Minsk had no interest in provoking a war.
He said on Friday that the only reasons Belarus would go to war is if the country itself, or Russia, were directly attacked.
"We will stand up to defend our land,” he said, but added that “there will be no winners in this war”.
match info
Chelsea 2
Willian (13'), Ross Barkley (64')
Liverpool 0
The years Ramadan fell in May
WWE Evolution results
- Trish Stratus and Lita beat Alicia Fox and Mickie James in a tag match
- Nia Jax won a battle royal, eliminating Ember Moon last to win
- Toni Storm beat Io Shirai to win the Mae Young Classic
- Natalya, Sasha Banks and Bayley beat The Riott Squad in a six-woman tag match
- Shayna Baszler won the NXT Women’s title by defeating Kairi Sane
- Becky Lynch retained the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair in a Last Woman Standing match
- Ronda Rousey retained the Raw Women’s title by beating Nikki Bella
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre V8
Power: 480hp at 7,250rpm
Torque: 566Nm at 4,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: L/100km
Price: Dh306,495
On sale: now
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed
Based: Muscat
Launch year: 2018
Number of employees: 40
Sector: Online food delivery
Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
Brief scores:
Day 1
Toss: India, chose to bat
India (1st innings): 215-2 (89 ov)
Agarwal 76, Pujara 68 not out; Cummins 2-40
Why seagrass matters
- Carbon sink: Seagrass sequesters carbon up to 35X faster than tropical rainforests
- Marine nursery: Crucial habitat for juvenile fish, crustations, and invertebrates
- Biodiversity: Support species like sea turtles, dugongs, and seabirds
- Coastal protection: Reduce erosion and improve water quality
More from UAE Human Development Report:
Greatest Royal Rumble results
John Cena pinned Triple H in a singles match
Cedric Alexander retained the WWE Cruiserweight title against Kalisto
Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt win the Raw Tag Team titles against Cesaro and Sheamus
Jeff Hardy retained the United States title against Jinder Mahal
Bludgeon Brothers retain the SmackDown Tag Team titles against the Usos
Seth Rollins retains the Intercontinental title against The Miz, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe
AJ Styles remains WWE World Heavyweight champion after he and Shinsuke Nakamura are both counted out
The Undertaker beats Rusev in a casket match
Brock Lesnar retains the WWE Universal title against Roman Reigns in a steel cage match
Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble by eliminating Big Cass last
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The bio
Job: Coder, website designer and chief executive, Trinet solutions
School: Year 8 pupil at Elite English School in Abu Hail, Deira
Role Models: Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Dream City: San Francisco
Hometown: Dubai
City of birth: Thiruvilla, Kerala
