By Athena Papakosta

At the beginning of last February, the Danish Defense Minister stated that he does not rule out the possibility that “Russia will test Article 5 and NATO solidarity (…) within three or five years”.

About a month ago, there was a related statement by his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, in the German magazine Der Tagesspiegel, where the German Minister of Defense emphasized that a Russian attack may not be possible “for now” but, “our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible.”

In this cold war… waltz of statements, however, the protagonists are now the statements of the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, who, although he invoked the need to observe “strategic ambiguity”, refused, after the completion of the work of the International Conference on Ukraine in Paris, to block the deployment of Western troops on Ukrainian soil.

Causing uproar inside France, tremors in Europe and stretching the Russian antennae, the French president “strikes again”, but from Prague this time.

Remaining outspoken in favor of European strategic autonomy and speaking again about the ongoing war in Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron insisted that “we will have to respond to History and the courage it demands” as, as he pointed out, “we are approaching a moment in History of Europe where we will be required not to be cowards”.

The answer from Moscow was not long in coming. This time, the head of the Russian intelligence services, Sergei Naryskin, took the floor, stressing that “Emmanuel Macron’s comments (…) lead the world community to the brink of a nuclear war.”

And Naryskin may not have said anything new – as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself made a similar statement during his annual speech last Thursday – his words are, however, yet another reminder of the unwritten red lines. of Russia, which in recent days has been watching (simmering) the largest NATO exercise since the end of the Cold War taking place within breathing distance of its western and northwestern borders.

The Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, has already announced that “measures are now being implemented to strengthen the deployment of Russian troops” while, for his part, the country’s Foreign Ministry, on the occasion of the Russian wiretapping of 38 minutes of high-ranking German military personnel, he insists on trying the existential threat card, talking about a Western attack plan against Russia.

For its part, the United States, through the representative of the National Security Council of the White House, John Kirby, makes it clear that “there will be no American soldiers on the territory of Ukraine” while, to Macron’s new statements about courage, Berlin also reacts by speaking for unproductive discussions.

It is still required for the West not to bite the forbidden fruit and to continue to stand cautiously against the possibility of a reckless escalation. In the “sos” of this test, according to analysts, is NATO’s strategy not to lose its cohesion, as the North Atlantic Alliance accuses in an opinion article by the British The Guardian.

But after the storm following the leak of a conversation between German Air Force officials regarding the delivery of Taurus missiles to Kiev, the balancing exercise is on a tightrope and even under the threat of nuclear conflict.