French President Emmanuel Macron said that Russia under President Vladimir Putin is an adversary that will not stop in Ukraine if Kiev’s forces are defeated in the two-year-old conflict and urged Europeans not to be “weak” and prepare to respond.
Macron sparked controversy last month after he said he did not rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine in the future, at a time when many leaders distanced themselves from this while others, especially in Eastern Europe, expressed their support.
In a television interview directed mostly at the French, Macron said: “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility will be reduced to zero,” after French opposition leaders criticized his statements as warmongering.
He added that he disagreed “strongly” with the opposition leaders, but “today, deciding to abstain or vote against supporting Ukraine does not mean choosing peace, but choosing defeat. It is different.”
The main far-right opposition party, led by Marine Le Pen, decided to abstain from voting in Parliament earlier this week on a security agreement signed by France with Ukraine, while the hard-left France Intrepid Party voted against it.
Macron added, “If the war spreads in Europe, Russia is responsible, but if we decide to be weak, if we decide today not to respond, that will already be a choice of defeat. And I do not want this.”
He added that it is important for Europe “not to draw red lines, which might suggest weakness to the Kremlin and encourage it to continue invading Ukraine.”
He declined to provide details about what the process of deploying forces in Ukraine might look like.
He continued, saying: “I do not want this. I want Russia to stop this war, retreat from its positions, and allow peace. I will not inform someone of a matter who does not inform me of anything. This is President Putin’s business.”
He stressed that France will never launch an attack against Russia and that Paris is not at war with Moscow, even though Russia has launched attacks on French interests inside and outside France.
He pointed out that “the Kremlin regime is an adversary,” refraining from describing Russia as an enemy, but commented on Putin’s threat to launch nuclear strikes that it was “not appropriate.”
Macron went on to say that Ukraine is in a “difficult” situation on the ground and that stronger support from allies is necessary. Peace does not mean Ukraine’s surrender. Wanting peace does not mean defeat. “The desire for peace does not mean abandoning Ukraine.”
He also expressed his hope that a day would come when peace would be negotiated with a Russian president, “whoever he may be,” imagining for the first time the possibility that Putin would not be in power.
He denied that canceling a scheduled visit to Ukraine was due to security reasons, and said, “This is what Russia said. You should not believe them.”
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2024-03-15 02:00:48
