“Perhaps at some point – I don’t wish it, I wouldn’t take the initiative – there will be a need for operations on the ground, whatever they are, against the Russian forces,” he said in an interview on Friday on his return from Berlin where he met with the leaders of Germany Olaf Scholz and Poland Donald Tusk.
French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated, in an interview published Saturday night by the newspaper Le Parisien, that field operations by the West on the territory of Ukraine may be necessary “at some point.”
“Perhaps at some point – I don’t wish it, I wouldn’t take the initiative – there will be a need for operations on the ground, whatever they are, against the Russian forces,” he said in an interview on Friday on his return from Berlin where he met with the leaders of Germany Olaf Scholz and Poland Donald Tusk.
“The strength of France is that we can do it,” he adds.
In his interview, the president of France denies that there is a disagreement within the Franco-German axis on the matter. “I wanted to come to Germany very soon so that there would be no discussion about the existence of strategic differences: there are none,” he explains.
“There was never a disagreement between the chancellor and me. There is broad agreement on the goals and the situation. What is different is the way they are interpreted,” he says, referring to the “strategic cultures” of the two countries.
“Germany has a strategic culture of great prudence, non-intervention, and keeping a distance from nuclear … A very different model from France, which has nuclear weapons and has maintained and strengthened a professional army,” he says.
Emmanuel Macron says he has abandoned a trip to Kiev to visit Berlin and meet with Olaf Solz and Donald Tusk.
He assures that he was going to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before mid-March, in a trip to Ukraine that was originally planned for February and then postponed. His visit to Kiev will take place in the coming weeks, the French president assures.
Emmanuel Macron insists that French and German aid to Ukraine is characterized by subsidiarity.
“Germany spends more than France, it has a bigger fiscal margin, it is lucky. France can do things Germany can’t do,” he says.
“We must not give in to intimidation, we do not have a great force against us. Russia is a middle power with nuclear weapons, but its GDP is far below the GDP of the Europeans, below Germany and France.
Source :Skai
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