Ukraine under pressure to bow to Russian demands after meeting with Emmanuel Macron

The French president signalled the West would back Russian demands for Ukraine to change its constitution to avert an invasion

Ukraine was on Tuesday under pressure to bow to Russian demands to change its constitution after Emmanuel Macron signalled the West would back the move as a path to avert war. 

Mr Macron said on Tuesday that he had secured agreement from both Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to implement the Minsk II peace agreement, which is deeply unpopular in Ukraine, following meetings in Moscow and Kyiv.

It came after Mr Putin demanded Ukraine implement the agreement, saying: “Like it or not, my beauty, you have to put up with it.”

The president was using a Russian idiom for telling children to do something they do not want to. The Kremlin dismissed speculation Mr Putin was quoting an obscene rock song that also uses the phrase.

Minsk II was drawn up as the Russian army and its local separatist allies were in the process of encircling and defeating Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine in 2015, and the immediate provision was to impose a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons.

It also requires several amendments to Ukrainian laws and constitution designed to re-integrate the Russian-controlled separatist “republics”, which broke away during the 2014-2015 war, back into Ukraine.