Emmanuel Macron says France ready to send troops to Ukraine to prevent "Russia from winning"
The French president said that showing weakness in front of "someone like Putin" is a way to "accept defeat."
French President Emmanuel Macron intensified his stance on the war between Ukraine and Russia, stating that he is prepared to use all the resources at his disposal to prevent Moscow from emerging victorious in the conflict.
In a televised interview this Thursday, Macron stated that although his country will not seek to initiate a direct confrontation with Russia, France is considering sending troops to help Ukraine achieve peace.
“We are ready to use all the resources at our disposal to achieve our goal (...) Because if Russia won, how would the lives of the French people change? We would no longer have security in Europe (…). We have an objective. “Russia cannot and should not win the war,” he said.
Macron preferred not to detail what scenarios could lead France to deploy troops, highlighting that “there may be a reason not to be precise.” Likewise, he stressed that the return of war to Western Europe is not a remote possibility but a real and close threat.
“If we decide to be weak in front of someone like [Vladímir] Putin who has no limits, if we naively tell him that we will not exceed this or that limit, it would not be seeking peace, it would be assuming defeat,” Macron warned in the interview, emphasizing the need to maintain a firm stance against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
The French president had previously suggested to European NATO members the possibility of deploying ground troops to support Ukraine, a proposal that did not go unnoticed by the Kremlin. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a strong warning, hinting at the serious consequences of such actions.
“We remember the fate of those who once sent their contingents to our territory, but the consequences for the interventionists will now be much more tragic,” said Putin, underlining Russia’s ability to hit targets in the territories of its adversaries through its advanced weapons systems.
“What they propose scares the entire world. All this threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons and, therefore, the destruction of civilization,” added the Russian president, highlighting the risk of an escalation that could have catastrophic consequences on a global level.