The United States has been pushing Ukraine for a confrontation with Russia, supplying Ukraine with **, sending troops to Eastern Europe, trying to provoke a war in Europe. However, none of the other parties involved would like to see such an outcome. Russia wants its security needs to be taken seriously and does not want to clash with the West. Although Ukraine wants to use the power of the United States to recover Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it is also dissatisfied with the panic created by the United States, which has brought economic losses to itself. Most countries in the European Union, especially France and Germany, do not want Europe to become a battlefield, let alone Russia. Therefore, in order to avoid war, the EU launched an active diplomatic effort, and France** Macron visited Russia, held talks with Putin ** for 5 hours, and put forward some suggestions for resolving the crisis, which was thanked and recognized by Putin. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the United States and met with Biden in an attempt to persuade the United States to abandon its provocations against Russia and maintain peace and stability in Europe.
According to a report by the Observer and the Global Times on February 8, after meeting with Macron, Putin once again stressed that NATO's eastward expansion ignores Russia's security requirements, but Russia is still willing to reach a compromise with the West through dialogue. After meeting with Scholz, Biden claimed that "there are no differences between the United States and Germany and they will work together to meet the Russian challenge." But Scholz said that he and Biden discussed some details, but they could not be made public for the time being.
From these circumstances, it can be seen that France and Germany, two important members of the European Union, do not want the situation between Russia and Ukraine to escalate into a conflict. Ignoring the opposition of the United States, they directly invited Ukraine and Russia to participate in the "Quadripartite Talks" and facilitated a "ceasefire agreement" between Russia and Ukraine. But the United States has been behind the scenes, hoping that Ukraine can go to war, which makes the White House very unhappy.
There may be three motives behind the United States. First, they want to use the power of NATO to strike at Russia's influence;The second is to plunge Europe into a war and force the EU countries to rely completely on the United States and dare not have any dissent;Third, they want to use this to threaten China, hoping to obtain more benefits in the Asia-Pacific region without using force.
There may be four Franco-German motives for mediation. The first is that they do not want Europe to become a battlefield, while the United States can stay out of it, which France and Germany cannot tolerate;The second is that they do not think that Ukraine's accession to NATO or the EU will bring any benefits to the EU, but will increase friction and trouble, so they want to cut off this illusion of Ukraine;The third is the need for Russian energy, and after years of cooperation, Russia has been regarded as a "reliable partner" and does not want to completely break Russian-European relations;Fourth, they want to show the United States that the EU is not a puppet of the United States, and that the EU will not hesitate to express its position if the United States does something that harms the interests of the EU.
However, the EU is not a unified whole, with 27 member states, each with its own ideas. France and Germany and other old EU countries want to "stop the war", but the "new EU" countries that are closer to Russia, such as the three Baltic states - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - oppose Franco-German mediation and instead call on the United States to increase its military presence in Eastern Europe and exert more pressure on Russia. They have also provided Ukraine with missiles such as "Javelin" and "Stinger", which is a blatant provocation against Russia.
Of course, world powers like France, Germany and Russia, as well as regional powers like Ukraine, will not be swayed by the three small Baltic states, but they will now face the United States. Ukraine is also unhappy with the United States, which took the lead in evacuating the families of diplomats from Kyiv, triggering five other allies to follow suit, making Ukraine feel abandoned. Moreover, the United States has also continued to promote the claim that "Russia could invade Ukraine at any time", which has led to panic among people, and a large amount of investment has flowed out of Ukraine, causing a heavy blow to the Ukrainian economy.
Judging from the current situation, only the United States is "adding fuel to the fire" behind it, and the Quartet, including Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, all want to avoid conflict, so the outbreak of this war is not very likely. However, peace is also conditional, for example, Russia's core demand is "NATO should not expand eastward", and Putin also made it clear after meeting with Macron that "NATO's eastward expansion will only lead to conflict, and then European countries will also be involved". However, the leader of NATO is the United States, which also wants to use "eastward expansion" to suppress Russia and at the same time contain its allies in Europe. Therefore, France and Germany, as allies of the United States, will need to spend a lot of time and energy to persuade the United States to abandon their hostility against Russia, and the United States is the most difficult side.