Macron: France Could Put Troops on the Ground in Ukraine
French president tried to outperform the U.S. in the fundraising dog and pony show
There is a growing sense of desperation in the West to get the funding to keep the Ukraine War going.
Victoria Nuland, the U.S. State Department’s #2 official, said recently if Russian President Vladimir Putin is allowed to win, other “hungry” tyrants will start to get ideas. (A not-so-subtle nod to China’s Xi Jinping with Taiwan.)
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Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister and ultimate Russian hawk (along with his wife), told CNN that the U.S.’s credibility hangs in the balance on whether it passes another $60 billion for Ukraine.
Sikorski, who is famous for thanking the U.S. for bombing the Nord Stream pipelines before deleting the post, got to thank the Secretary of State in person in Washington on Monday. Blinken posted on X that they talked about how their partnership “continues to grow,” which usually means a new air defense contract.
French President Emmanuel Macron, not to be outdone by the U.S.’s dog and pony show, went even further and vaguely told reporters that he couldn’t rule out French troops entering the fray in Ukraine.
He said “Nothing should be ruled out,” so by that rationale, it is not out of the question that he joins Zelensky on stage the next time he pretends to play the piano with no hands as Nuland plays the bass.
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Marcon said it is his goal that Russia does not succeed in Ukraine.
TRENDPOST: Western politicians have mastered the art of being vague when it comes to losing military operations. Like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “total victory” against Hamas, nobody seems able to define what success means for Putin by Western standards.
Does it mean Russia retreats to pre-24 February 2022 lines? Does it mean Russia hands over Crimea AND retreats to its pre-war lines? Does it mean Ukraine gets to join NATO?
The New York Times reported that there was some chatter at a conference in support of Ukraine in Paris that Western countries are considering deploying troops inside Ukraine. Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia noted the rumors and said he was opposed the the idea, the report said.
Macron was once seen as a rational voice in the West, compared the the warhawks in Poland and Washington who have wanted war with Russia for decades.
He told Le Journal du Dimanche, the French paper last year, "I do not think, as some people do, that we must aim for a total defeat of Russia, attacking Russia on its own soil. Those observers want to, above all else, crush Russia. That has never been the position of France and it will never be our position.”
Macron said Monday that there was no consensus in his country for sending troops into Ukraine.
Zelensky can now only rely on presenting Ukraine as the bulwark between European countries and Putin, thus, any investment into Ukraine is really an investment in their in their own security.
“Together we must ensure that Putin cannot destroy our achievements and cannot expand his aggression to other nations,” he said.
TREND FORECAST: As we had forecast before the Ukraine War began on 24 February 2022, Russia would not be defeated.