Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday denounced “lies” spread by the Russian government to justify a war in Ukraine, but said he would stay in contact with President Vladimir Putin to try to secure a ceasefire. Macron, who spearheaded European efforts to avert war by visiting Putin in Moscow last month and mediating by telephone between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the Russian leader, blamed the hostilities squarely on the Kremlin . “It was alone, betraying his international commitments one by one, that President Putin chose war,” Macron said in a national address to the French people. “This war...