New Delhi: In a 90-minute phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said "the worst is to come" in Ukraine, an aide to the French leader said as quoted by news agency AFP.
"The expectation of the president is that the worst is to come, given what President Putin told him," a senior aide to the French leader told reporters on condition of anonymity.
"There was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us. He showed great determination to continue the operation," the aide continued.
He added that Putin "wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine. He will, in his own words, carry out his operation to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine to the end."
"You can understand the extent to which these words are shocking and unacceptable and the president told him that it was lies," the aide said.
Macron additionally encouraged Putin to avoid citizen casualties and take into consideration humanitarian access.
"President Putin replied that he was in favour but without making any commitments," the aide said.
Macron will again push for additional sanctions on Russia to expand the cost of the intrusion, the associate said while denying any open strains between the two men.
"President Putin has a way of talking that is very neutral and very clinical. He sometimes shows signs of impatience, but fundamentally there were no open signs of tensions during the exchanges," the aide said.