Emmanuel Macron has been a stalwart ally of President Volodymyr Zelensky since his attempts at trying to dissuade Vladimir Putin from invading in 2022 failed.Credit:Bloomberg
Macron made the comments in an interview withThe Economist after delivering a speech last week when he declared that Europe was “mortal” and could “die” partly due to the threat posed by Russian aggression after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m not ruling anything out because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out,” Macron said when asked if he stood by his previous comments not excluding the sending of Western troops. His views at the time drew a sharp put-down from Germany and caused uproar in several other EU states.
Russia has pushed Ukraine onto the back foot on the battlefield as Kyiv grapples with shortages of troops and ammunition after a long delay in military aid. Ukrainian forces are now racing to build more defensive fortifications at places along the around 1000-kilometre front line.
Putin’s forces launched theirthird attack in a week on the southern port city of Odesa on Thursday,firing ballistic missiles and injuring 14 people,local officials and emergency services said. The attack hit a sorting depot belonging to Ukraine’s biggest private delivery company,Nova Poshta. No staff were injured,the company said,but the strike started a major fire.
Emergency service personnel try to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Odesa.Credit:Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP
General Oleksandr Syrskyi,the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces,said at the weekend that his outnumbered and outgunned forces had been pushed back from their positions in the eastern Donetsk region. Some analysts believe Russia could be on the verge of launching a new full-blown offensive,putting the timing “between May and July”.
Macron said “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”.