Vitaly Portnikov: The Norman Format was at a dead end and will remain at a dead end "

"The main result of the Paris negotiations of the presidents of France and Ukraine is the readiness of Emmanuel Macron to promote negotiations in the" Norman format. "It is obvious that tomorrow Vladimir Zelensky will hear the same assurances in Berlin from Angel Merkel," the observer writes in his Telegram channel .

“But the problem of resuming meetings in the“ Norman format ”is not in the readiness of Macron or Merkel, but in Putin’s readiness. And the Russian president is by no means in a hurry to agree to them.

Each of the parties has its own ideas about the effectiveness of such a meeting - and the Kremlin’s representations are fundamentally different from the performances of Paris, Berlin or Kyiv. The "Norman format" was at a dead end and will remain at a dead end, the escalation on the contact line will only intensify.

And all talk about its resumption, expansion and improvement are exclusively ritual in nature, which has only one meaning for each side. For us and the West, this is a continuation of sanctions, and for Russia - the continuation of the war. "