France’s Macron assails Putin’s ‘brutal attack’ on Ukraine

PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday accused the Russian leader of launching a “brutal attack” on Ukraine in an imperialist, revanchist violation of national borders. Macron spoke hours after a phone call with Vladimir Putin. Macron tried tirelessly but unsuccessfully to prevent the invasion and long vaunted the importance of dialogue with Putin. The French president has grown increasingly critical of the Russian president as the war bears on. He warned French citizens that the resulting energy and economic crisis confronting Europe isn’t over. He called it “the price of our freedom and our values.”