“Russia, as a strategic power, no longer gives us any visibility,” said the President of the Republic in an interview with La Provence and La Tribune Dimanche. “At the beginning, it had a stated strategic objective: it claimed to save Ukrainian provinces (oblasts) which had declared their autonomy,” also explains Emmanuel Macron.
But today, “it has decided to resolutely become a destabilizing power which gives no strategic limit to its action”. And faced with this observation, and faced with such an adversary, “what weakness to draw a priori limits, what weakness!”, affirmed the Head of State in response to those who criticize him for having mentioned the possibility of send troops to Ukraine. “We cannot afford to set limits for ourselves in the face of an enemy who sets no limits,” he had already defended at the beginning of March. “On the contrary, we must remove all visibility from it, because that is what creates the capacity to deter,” he added this time in the weekly.
Emmanuel Macron was questioned about the position of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz who said he was resolutely opposed to sending Western troops to Ukraine, while the French president again raised this option this week in the British weekly The Economist.
“Strategic ambiguity is not giving too many details,” Emmanuel Macron dodged before justifying his position: “Russian excitement shows that we are right not to close any doors. Otherwise, it means that we agree to renounce an international order based on law and therefore peace and security.”