French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to reveal private telephone exchanges in a documentary about his failed efforts to convince Vladimir Putin not to start a war in Ukraine has drawn strongly-worded rebuke from Russia.

“When calls are made at the highest level this of course is confidential, these are closed-doors negotiations,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a talk show on state-run Channel One. 

“After that, it’s hardly worth expecting the French side to respect anyone’s confidentiality,” she said late Sunday. “Paris signaled to the whole world that it considers it normal to publish conversations between its leaders and partners.”

An entire conversation between Macron and Putin that took place on Feb. 20, four days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was filmed by a France 2 television crew. It aired in the documentary broadcast Thursday, titled “A President, Europe and the war.” 

During the exchange, Putin agrees “in principle” to meet with US President Joe Biden in Geneva. As Macron grows irritated, Putin becomes dismissive and says he’s at the gym and just wants play ice hockey. 

The meeting with Biden never took place. Macron’s diplomatic adviser is seen calling Putin a “liar.”

The Elysee might have hoped the documentary would temper criticism that Macron was too soft on Putin, and cast his attempt to act as intermediary between Russia and the West in a more positive light. Instead, it risks fueling the perception that Macron was naive. 

In one scene, on the train back from Kyiv last month, the French president struggles to explain why he kept talking to his Russian counterpart. “I thought that we could find a path with Putin via trust and reasoning,” he says. 

It wasn’t the first time the Elysee was accused of leaking transcripts. In 2020, Le Monde newspaper published exchanges between Macron and Putin about opposition leader Alexey Navalny. That riled Russia, which a year later published parts of the correspondence between French, German and Russian foreign ministers.

Bloomberg