By Athena Papakosta

Once again, the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, postpones his planned visit to Ukraine. The Élysée noted that the new postponement does not arise because of any concerns for the French president’s security after the Russian missile attack that took place in Odessa last week, during a visit by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

In recent weeks, Emmanuel Macron he has escalated his anti-Moscow rhetoric, he has shuffled the deck of balances in the Western camp by calling on Europe not to be “cowardly” on the one hand and refusing to rule out the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine on the other.

And while diplomats and/or analysts note that in essence the French president is buying time so that when he steps on Ukrainian soil he can present some tangible results that will have emerged after talks with other Western allies, the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg , again distanced himself from the French president’s statements, stressing that “NATO has no plans to send troops to Ukraine and is not involved in the conflict.”

However, it was preceded by the position of Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, who said that “NATO soldiers are already in Ukraine.”

The Kremlin’s response was immediate Dmitry Peskov to underline that “our competent authorities have known, for a long time, that individuals (…) who have direct ties to NATO are on Ukrainian territory” with the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, on Monday evening, to clarifies that “Sikorski’s statements are proof of NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict in Ukraine” and adds that “now it is futile to deny it”.

At the same time, the Minister of Defense of Slovakia, Robert Kalinak, takes the floor and emphasizes that instead of Kiev’s Western allies considering sending Western troops to Ukraine, it is better to help the country’s men return home to fight.

However, the Russian anger remains and the French Foreign Minister, in an interview with the French newspaper La Tribune, states that “after two years of conflict, Russia is becoming more and more aggressive”, and repeats that “Russia should not and, therefore, cannot win”.

For his part, the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, shortly before crossing the threshold of the White House, together with the country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, calls on NATO members to increase defense spending of their GDP to 3%.

And the… upheavals within the Alliance continue as the comments of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, have already been added to the discussion, who, returning from the United States – where he met with the former American president, Donald Trump – revealed that if the only candidate for the Republican nomination returns to the White House, he will turn his back on Ukraine and Europe as well.

And as Ukraine is largely dependent on economic and military aid from the West, the merry-go-round of statements also includes those of the German Foreign Minister, Analena Berbock, who, speaking to the German ARD, said she was open to the proposal of her British counterpart. David Cameron, speaking to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said that Germany could deliver “Taurus” missiles to Britain, which in turn would send Ukraine more of its “Storm Shadow” counterparts.