While speaking to the media in Tallinn, Estonia, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged for increased military, financial, and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

“Russia must not hope to win,” Le Drian said. “The stakes for us are strategic.”

“We have a very clear objective, to not give up anything and to intensify our efforts until a total ceasefire across the whole of Ukraine’s territory and real negotiations,” he added.

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According to Le Drian, France wants to demonstrate to allies “on every continent” that “because the Russian war in Ukraine is the negation of the principles and commitments that protect us all, it is everyone’s business.”

He also cautioned about believing claims of less fighting, stating, “We can only judge acts and for the moment we are not there.”

He also called on Europe to divest from Russian hydrocarbons.

“While we don’t all have the same dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, we will have the same interest in exiting them (in Europe),” he continued.

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Since Wednesday, Le Drian has been on a tour of Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania.

The minister’s remarks came two days after he told CNN that Russia-Ukraine negotiations had made little progress.

In an interview with CNN, Le Drian stated that there was “nothing new” and “no breakthrough” in the talks in Istanbul.

He went on to say that “the issues are still the same” and that Russian President Putin “still wishes to impose his diktat on Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Le Drian, “wants some security guarantees to be given to his country and at the moment there is nothing like that in the discussion.”

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Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, stated that Russia is “trying to concentrate” missile systems in southeastern Belarus for possible use against Ukraine.

Despite Russia’s recent claims of a de-escalation zone around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, the judgement comes as a surprise.