Marine Le Pen Refuses to Call Events in Ukraine 'Genocide'

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has echoed the country's President Emmanuel Macron by refusing to call the current developments in Ukraine "genocide".

In an interview with the TV channel France 2, the leader of the right-wing party National Rally said that de jure, genocide is an "extremely clear definition" that does not correspond to the currently known facts surrounding the situation in Ukraine.

The remarks came after Macron told France 2 that it's necessary to tread carefully on using genocide-related terminology, especially when it comes to the Ukraine conflict.

"I would be discreet with terms today [...] Russians and Ukrainians are fraternal peoples. What is happening is madness, this is a return to war in Europe; but, at the same time, I am looking at the facts, I want to try as much as possible to stop this war and restore peace", the French president said.

He spoke after US President Joe Biden accused Russian forces of committing "genocide" in Ukraine during a speech on Tuesday. POTUS then partially backtracked on the claims by saying that lawyers should decide "whether or not it qualifies" as such, but argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "trying to wipe out the idea of even being able to be a Ukrainian".

Moscow responded by stressing that it is "unacceptable" for Biden to use the word "genocide" to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine, accusing Washington of hypocrisy over its own war crimes, including the illegal bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. The bombings killed about 1,000 members of the Yugoslav security forces and between 489 and 528 civilians.

"We categorically disagree and consider unacceptable any attempt to distort the situation in this way", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. He added that accusing Russia of genocide in Ukraine is "hardly acceptable from a president of the United States, a country that has committed well-known crimes in recent times".

Russia's Special Op in Ukraine

Russia launched its special operation to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine 24 February. When announcing the operation, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasised that the goal is to protect those people who have been subjected to "bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years". He called for bringing to justice all of the war criminals responsible for "bloody crimes against civilians" in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD), the operation is only targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure with high-precision weapons. Late last month, the MoD said that Russian troops had successfully implemented the main tasks of the operation's first stage by significantly reducing the combat potential of Ukraine, something that has allowed Russian forces to currently focus on liberating Donbass.