Macron Reiterates: France May Send Troops to Ukraine, “Russia Cannot Win in Ukraine”

Macron Reiterates: France May Send Troops to Ukraine, “Russia Cannot Win in Ukraine”

Karen Faulkner

France’s President Emmanuel Macron has reiterated that he would consider sending French troops to help Ukraine fight back against Russia’s invasion if the Ukrainians requested it, the Kyiv Post reports. Macron first announced his highly controversial standpoint earlier this year.

In his recent remarks to The Economist, Macron said he was unwilling to rule out sending troops to Ukraine because Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has shown a willingness to take control of Ukraine by any means. “I’m not ruling anything out because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out,” Macron said.

Acknowledging there is no consensus among NATO members for sending troops to Ukraine, the French President noted in his recent remarks to the Economist that he would encourage his counterparts to send troops as well. “If Russia decided to go further, we will, in any case, all have to ask ourselves this question” of sending troops, describing his refusal to rule out such a move as a “strategic wake-up call for my counterparts,” Macron said.

Describing Russia as “a power of regional destabilization” that poses a threat to European security, Macron asserted: “I have a clear strategic objective: Russia cannot win in Ukraine. If Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe.”

Putin announced Monday that he is carrying out nuclear weapons testing to deal with “Western aggression.”