French President Emmanuel Macron called President Vladimir Putin's Russia an adversary that would not stop in Ukraine if it defeated Kyiv's troops in the two-year-old conflict, urging Europeans to not be "weak" and to get ready to respond.
Macron caused controversy last month after he said he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future, with many leaders distancing themselves from that while others, especially in Eastern Europe, expressed support.
"If Russia wins this war, Europe's credibility will be reduced to zero," Macron said in a television interview mostly directed at a domestic audience after French opposition leaders criticized his comments as bellicose.
Macron said he "deeply" disagrees with the opposition leaders. "Today, deciding to abstain or vote against support for Ukraine is not choosing peace; it's choosing defeat. It's different," he said.
Macron's main opposition party, the far-right of Marine Le Pen, abstained in parliament on a vote earlier this week about a security pact France signed with Ukraine, while the hard left France Unbowed party voted against it.
"If war spread in Europe, Russia would be to blame," Macron added. "But if we decided to be weak; if we decided today that we would not respond, it would be choosing defeat already. And I don't want that."
He said it was important for Europe not to draw red lines, which would signal weakness to the Kremlin and encourage it to push on with its invasion of Ukraine. He refused to give details on what a deployment to Ukraine might look like.
"I don't want to do so. I want Russia to stop this war and retreat from its positions and allow peace," he said. "I'm not going to give visibility to someone who is not giving me any. This is a question for President Putin."
"I have reasons not to be precise," he said.
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