PARIS — President François Hollande of France is not known as a high-risk gambler, but even he admitted last week that his last-minute mission in search of peace in Ukraine was something of a long shot.
In fact, according to one report, when Mr. Hollande stepped up to the podium in Paris on Thursday to announce his plans, he still had not received the go-ahead from the Kremlin for a meeting in Moscow with President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday. It was delivered during the news conference.
The surprise initiative, taken in concert with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, staked out the middle ground for a political resolution to the war raging in eastern Ukraine. The European pair were playing the “good cops” to the American “bad cop” now publicly debating whether to send “lethal” defensive weapons to the beleaguered Ukrainian Army.
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According to Thomas Gomart, a Russia expert at the French Institute of International Relations, the greater risk is to stoke a wider war.
“The main thing is not to be dragged further into it,” he said. “It is crucial to maintain contact with Putin, to have a diplomatic approach, because we are on the verge of something dangerous.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 10, 2015, in The International New York Times. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
