Macron on the possible sending of Western troops to Ukraine: “Nothing must be ruled out to avoid Russian victory” | International

French President Emmanuel Macron and his European partners wanted to send a message to Russian Vladimir Putin this Monday: Europe, two years after the large-scale attack against Ukraine, is not tired of the war nor will it allow Russia to win it . . Because after Ukraine, according to Macron, the next Russian targets could be EU or NATO members. Western commitment to Kiev could go as far as breaking a taboo: the sending of troops.

“Today there is no consensus on the official, presumed and decisive dispatch of ground forces,” Macron said at a press conference at the end of a summit with 27 leaders and ministers from the European Union and NATO. But he added: “Nothing should be ruled out. “We will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.”

The French president made it clear that, during the leaders’ conference and the subsequent dinner, sending troops was mentioned among the options for strengthening aid to Ukraine. And he defended France’s “strategic ambiguity” on this issue, without specifying whether this country was in favor or not.

Before the conference, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico had warned that sending troops was on the agenda. Fico, present in Paris, commented that this made him “shiver”.

What is significant is that Macron, in summarizing the debates, considered this a plausible hypothesis, or worthy of mention. He recalled that in the winter of 2022 there was talk of sending “sleeping bags and helmets” and “today they say that we need to send missiles and tanks”. And he said: “Everything is possible if it is useful to achieve our goal.”

Other initiatives at the conference include the joint issuance of debt to finance military aid to Ukraine, proposed by Estonia, and the purchase of ammunition from third countries to be sent to the Ukrainian armed forces. It was also decided to create a coalition to enhance the supply of medium and long range missiles.

“Russia, from the beginning, cannot and must not win this war in Ukraine, for Ukraine itself,” Macron said as he opened the summit. “Second, we ensure our collective security, today and tomorrow.”

The French president recalled recent cyberattacks and Russian disinformation campaigns and added, regarding a future military threat beyond Ukraine: “Consensus, collective analysis [entre los participantes] “The fact is that in a few years we will have to prepare for Russia to attack these countries.”

Europe, according to this analysis, must help Ukraine, because a Russian victory would encourage Putin to attack more countries. The thesis is that by defending Ukraine with military and economic assistance, Europe is being defended.

In a recorded message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Together we must ensure that Putin cannot destroy our gains, nor expand his aggression to other nations.”

Commitment to Ukraine

During the meeting the leaders tried to refute Western pessimism about the progress of the fighting. And they demonstrated their commitment to the attacked country. But they face growing doubts about their ability to deliver on time and in the quantities needed the weapons and ammunition Ukraine needs to halt the Russian advance.

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, were present at the conference, but not the Italian Giorgia Meloni. The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom – partners of NATO, but not of the EU – were represented by an undersecretary of state in the American case and by ministers in the other two.

The appeal, hastily improvised by Macron, responded to the urgency of the moment. One immediate reason: the aid blockade by the US Congress, which leaves the Europeans alone in aid to Ukraine. And another in the medium term: the hypothesis that, with Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections in November, the world’s leading power will disengage from Europe.

“If we don’t equip ourselves with the means to do more and better at the same time [por Ucrania]“We risk giving up too much space to the Russians,” an advisor to the French president, who requested anonymity, said on the eve of the summit. The goal of the summit is twofold, according to the advisor: “To signal very clearly to President Putin that, first, he will not win, and second, that we are not tired, that we are totally determined.”

The internal European context also counts, with the parliamentary elections in sight in June and the farmers’ mobilisations. One of the reasons for these protests – and all the more significant the closer we get to the EU border with Ukraine – is the rejection of competition from Ukrainian agricultural products and the fear of this country’s entry into the EU.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom, implementing a G7 decision last July, signed security agreements with Ukraine this winter. While the agreements commit them to helping the attacked country over the next 10 years, they do not replace the mutual defense obligation that NATO membership would entail.

One of the points addressed by leaders in Paris is how to speed up the production of ammunition for Ukraine or its purchase from third countries. “We must be able to deliver more ammunition,” says the aforementioned Elysée adviser. “We will buy howitzers where they are available.”

As part of the meeting, there was a discussion about who provides more or less aid to Ukraine. France, which appears in a worse position than Germany in the ranking drawn up by the Kiel Economic Institute, maintains that it is not only the economic value of weapons that must be quantified, but also their effectiveness in the theater of war.

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