Biden says he is willing to talk to Putin about Ukraine, with conditions

WASHINGTON — Standing beside the French leader who has championed the need for dialogue with Moscow, President Joe Biden said he would talk to President Vladimir Putin, but only in consultation with NATO allies and only if the Russian leader indicated he was “looking for a way to end the war.”

Biden’s public expression of conditioned willingness to reach out to Putin gratified French officials and provided unexpected support for President Emmanuel Macron’s outreach. Biden noted that Putin had shown no interest yet in ending his invasion, but Biden said that if that changed, “I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he has in mind.”

Evidently determined to present a united front during a White House news conference that at times resembled a love fest, Macron said that France would increase its military support for Ukraine and “will never urge Ukrainians to make a compromise that will not be acceptable for them.”

In effect, the two leaders met each other halfway, with Biden showing more openness to a negotiated settlement and Macron more unequivocal support for the Ukrainian cause. If partially choreographed, the meeting of minds appeared to exceed expectations on both sides.

It was a significant show of trans-Atlantic unity on the eve of a winter that will put immense strain on the Ukrainian people as well as pressure on Western economies, especially European states scrambling to find new sources of energy as prices rise sharply.

French officials said that during a three-hour closed meeting, Biden and Macron agreed that more Ukrainian battlefield gains would constitute important leverage in any talks with Moscow. In practice, the idea of negotiation seems far-fetched at a time when Putin has nothing he can call victory, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has military momentum.

“I’m not going to do it on my own,” Biden said of the possibility of talking to Putin, whose actions in Ukraine he called “sick.”

Macron was effusive in his support of Ukraine and its right to recover its full sovereignty, and there was no hint of his earlier calls for the need to avoid “humiliating” Russia. “If we want sustainable peace, we have to respect the Ukrainians to decide the moment and the conditions in which they will negotiate about their territory and their future,” Macron said.