French troops to Ukraine: Is a Ukrainian defeat on the horizon? Over the past two months, the press and social media have been full of commentaries and analysis about President Macron’s apparent willingness to send troops to Ukraine. A taboo has been broken: A western leader has openly mentioned sending western troops on the ground in Ukraine.
What has Macron said and when?
On February the 26th following a meeting with other European heads of state, President Macron dropped a bombshell statement: “There is no consensus at this stage to send troops on the ground, but nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win. There is a change in Russia’s stance. It is striving to take on further territory and it has its eyes not just on Ukraine but on many other countries as well, so Russia is presenting a greater danger. Russia, cannot win this war. It is the sole aggressor. It is the sole country that instigated this war. Russia is now clearly affecting our own safety and security through both traditional and hybrid war. However, we are not at war with the Russian people. The objective is to ensure Ukraine can negotiate peace and return to full territorial sovereignty.”
He added that Moscow’s defeat was “indispensable to security and stability in Europe.”
On the 16th of March, President Macron clarified his position.
“Our duty is to prepare for all scenarios. I am convinced, by the way, that in some of these scenarios, anyone who is able to do so with their model would assume their responsibilities. Many countries in Europe, and not the smallest ones, are totally on our line. We must consider new actions to support Ukraine. These must respond to very specific needs, I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyberdefence, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory. Some of those actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting. Nothing should be ruled out. A “strategic leap” is necessary. We are well aware that war is back on our soil (in Europe), that some powers which have become unstoppable are extending every day their threat of attacking us even more, and that we will have to live up to history and the courage that it requires.”
Le Parisien (on the 16th of March) asked Macron, “Is the general staff preparing military scenarios, just in case?” To this, Macron replied, “Our duty is to prepare ourselves for all scenarios. It would be an error; it would be wrong not to do this.”
Macron responded to Putin’s comments on the dangers of nuclear war during his primetime TF1 interview Thursday with his own threats. He said, “We must first and foremost feel protected, because we are a nuclear power. We are ready; we have a doctrine [for the use of nuclear weapons].”
Three days later, he said: “These are sufficiently serious issues; every one of the words that I say on this issue is weighed, thought through and measured.”
Reactions. Who supports him, who doesn’t and what have they said?
Germany
“What was agreed from the beginning among ourselves and with each other also applies to the future, namely that there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states,” Chancellor Scholz told journalists.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius delivered a flat-out rejection, telling a news conference with his Austrian counterpart (Klaudia Tanner) “Boots on the ground is not an option for the Federal Republic of Germany.” However, 6 weeks later, he added: “Putin is Hitler and Ukraine is Czechoslovakia in 1938”.
Sweden
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, who will soon be a NATO member, also said that deploying troops was “not on the cards at all for the moment.”
Poland
Minister of foreign affairs Radoslaw Sikorski said: “Shortly after the invasion, more than 140 countries out of 190 voted to condemn the aggression as unacceptable. This is not just a statement to the press, but the establishment of a legal framework.”
Given this, Sikorski stated that having “a coalition of UN member states to stop aggression here is not unthinkable.”
“That is why I applaud the recent French initiative. Because, in my opinion, there are good intentions behind it, namely to make the Russian president ask himself what our next step will be, instead of allowing him to be certain that we will not do anything creative and to plan his own scenarios,” Sikorski said.
In his opinion, the West should “implement creatively defined and asymmetric escalation”.
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said: “Europe is in a pre-war period reminiscent of the situation in 1939.”
Estonia
Prime minister Kaja Kallas said: “I think it is also the signal that we are sending to Russia, that nothing is off the table because all countries understand that we have to do everything to ensure that Ukraine wins and Russia loses this war.”
Lithuania
President Gitanas Nausėda said: “I welcomed the idea of sending missions to Ukrainian territory as an idea, and I still believe that we should discuss this idea. Of course, the best thing would be for all of us to agree unanimously on the need for this and to assess very well the intelligence and other information that we have”
He also underlined that the fear of the Kremlin’s possible reaction could not be a determining factor in the European decision: “If we start saying that no, Vladimir Putin will not like this or that, […] we will never make a decision. And that is why I told both president [Macron] and the media yesterday that we should stop drawing red lines for ourselves,”
Latvia
Minister for foreign affairs Krišjānis Kariņš said: What Macron is reminding everyone and bringing again to the forefront is the sense of urgency. This is what is needed.”
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs urged Western nations to overcome their reluctance in establishing and adhering to clear boundaries with Russia in his post on X on March 15: “I fully support Emmanuel Macron: we should not draw red lines for ourselves, we must draw red lines for Russia and we should not be afraid to enforce them. If we fail and Ukraine fails, then it’s an incentive for [aggressors] to do the same things all over the world.”
Russia
The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament warned Macron against sending troops to Ukraine, saying they would meet the same fate as Napoleon’s army.
Putin warned: “From a military-technical point of view, we are of course ready. As for governments who claim they have no more red lines with Russia, they must know that in this case, Russia will not have any more red lines with them, either.”
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that if NATO troops were deployed in Ukraine, “we need to speak not about a possibility but of the inevitability of confrontation. This is absolutely not in the interests of these countries, they should be aware of this,”
France
Under cover of anonymity, a high-ranking French officer confided in Marianne magazine on the 13th of March: “Pitted against the Russians, the French armed forces is an army of cheerleaders.” He went on to say that the French high-command “fell off its chair” upon hearing that President Macron had publicly suggested the possibility of sending french troops to Ukraine.
On the 16th of March, French Colonel Michel Goya compared France to a crocodile: “Big mouth, small arms” while being interviewed by news channel LCI. “If France doesn’t have enough spare shells to send to Ukraine, it means the French army doesn’t have enough shells to sustain a fight (against the Russians in Ukraine) either”!
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan a French sovereignist said on the 26th of March: “We are fighting the wrong war, we need to stop this propaganda. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is a local conflict, a fratricidal one. My opinion is that France is committing a big historical mistake by pouring oil on the fire rather than coming forward with a peace proposal. The real enemy is Islamism that is progressing through Africa. There should not be any winners or losers in this conflict, just peace. Peace is possible, it was negotiated in Istanbul in December 2022 and this effort was scuppered by the British and the Americans. Peace is possible if Ukraine is demilitarised and neutral” (Jacque Chirac put forward a proposal to that effect in 2006-2007 because Moscow was getting more vocal about the eastward expansion of NATO and president Chirac thought said expansion was causing a strategic imbalance in Europe). Nicolas Dupont-Aignan added: “This war is the suicide of Europe in the 21st century. This war will ensure that China wins in the East, Europe remains economically subservient to the USA and that the Islamism in the South (Africa) remains unchecked”.
What could France do?
Besides sending instructors to train Ukrainian soldiers or sending combat engineers to help with mine clearing, France has a couple of options in Ukraine.
1) Man the border between Ukraine and Belarus to guard it, thus releasing fresh Ukrainian troops that could be deployed in the East of the country. It sounds good on paper but the Belarusian front has been quiet for a long time. It is doubtful that many Ukrainian troops are deployed along their northern border as Russia could not deploy meaningful amounts of men in Belarus without being spotted.
2) France could deploy troops in Kiev and Odessa to deter Russian troops from attacking the cities. This would only need happening should the AFU collapse completely and should the Russian armed forces advance on the Dnieper. We are far from this scenario right now.
3) France could deploy troops along the Dnieper in order to deny a Russian crossing of the river. The scenario was discussed with French Colonel Arbaretier on LCI on the 18th of March. According to the French officer, the Dnieper is a physical border between Western and Eastern Ukraine. According to him, the river is an easily recognisable boundary. Should Paris forbid the crossing of this river by Russian troops (with threat to open fire in case of an actual crossing), Russian soldiers would easily recognise the boundary and could not cross it by accident.
He noted that the majority of the population West of the Dnieper is made up of ethnic Ukrainians and Ukrainian speakers.
Asked if such a deployment would not be seen by Moscow as a provocation, Arbaretier assured the journalist that it would not be so. “To the contrary, such a French deployment would force Russia to deal with France and negotiate with Paris on an equal footing, nuclear power to nuclear power”.
The French Colonel highlighted the fact President Macron has the authority to deploy troops abroad without having to seek his government approval first. Arbaretier said France could deploy 20,000 men (a division), a blend of fighting units and support units to fulfill a mission in Ukraine should it be needed. The French armed forces could start deploying troops in Ukraine within weeks of a presidential request. “France is capable of deploying troops rapidly”, he said.
General Pierre Schill, head of France’s ground forces, said on the 18th of March that France could contribute 20,000 troops to an international coalition of up to 60,000 troops and lead it.
Can France do it? Capabilities?
The French could initially deploy 2,000 men, or the equivalent of two GTIA (batallion sized “joint tactical battlegroup”). This could increase to between 7,000 and 15,000 soldiers over the course of several weeks to several months.
All things considered, projecting troops abroad is the easy part. Sustaining them is different altogether!
Let’s have a look at past French military adventures to see what they have done and therefore what they could do in the future.
From 2001 onwards, France deployed between 3,000 and 4,000 troops to Afghanistan. When President Francois Hollande ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 French combat troops from the country in May 2012, the draw down started in July and ended in November. Hardware was still being transported back to France in the early months of 2013. With the main NATO supply route through Pakistan becoming increasingly dangerous, France had issues with repatriating its vehicles and hardware. Ukrainian An-124 were enrolled to help the French but this was a costly solution. In the end, 1,200 shipping containers and 600 vehicles were transported by rail through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia, all the way to Riga (Latvia). This was NATO’s Northern Distribution Network: In 2008 Russia agreed to let NATO transport weapons and personnel across its territory to support the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The transit routes, which went through Russia and post-Soviet Central Asia, provided an alternative to Pakistan and came to account for 40 percent of all ISAF-bound supplies.
In short, France could not evacuate 2,000 men and 600 vehicles from Afghanistan on its own.
In 2011 French and British forces began a military intervention in Libya. This was to be an almost exclusively aerial operation. Yet, within 12 days, Paris and London had to hand over control of the operations to NATO as they were both unable to handle the load on their own. The British and French opened hostilities against the Libyan army on the 19th of March with the help of the Americans and Canadians. NATO took sole command and control of the international military effort for Libya on 31 March 2011 dubbed “Operation Unified Protector (OUP)”. According to NATO’s own website “NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Brussels, Belgium exercised overall political direction of OUP, while Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, carried out NAC decisions with military implementations through Joint Force Command (JFC) Naples”.
France and Britain did not have the capabilities to sustain an aerial campaign over Libya on their own and needed NATO’s assistance for C5ISR as well as for fuel, spares and ammunition.
With Operation Serval/Operation Barkhane from 2013/2014 onwards, France deployed 5,500 troops (at its peak) across the Sahel region of Africa
Again, very quickly, France called on its allies to help with the logistics. 12 countries responded to the call and deployed hardware and troops. The components supplied by France’s allies are telling a story: C-130, C-17, C-160 cargo planes; A310 MRTT, KDC-10 and KC-135 tankers; Agusta A109 and Chinook for MEDEVAC and a Sentinel R1 for surveillance.
It took Paris 6 months to withdraw 5,000 soldiers and their equipment from Mali in 2022. The French defence ministry said in 2023 that the withdrawal of 1,500 French soldiers, their vehicles and equipment from Niamey (Niger) inside of a 3 months window was a logistical nightmare.
The claim that France could sent 20,000 soldiers to Ukraine seems pretty bombastic when placed beside France’s real projection capabilities. France has demonstrated it could project modest assets abroad but could not sustain them on its own. The number of French troops deployed abroad since 2001 has never exceeded 5,500 troops and 2,500 to 3,000 seem to have been the sweet spot (even with external support provided by allies). “On its own,” France could realistically send 2,000 to 7,500 men in Ukraine. A drop in the ocean for a country as big as Ukraine. France would still require NATO cooperation to sustain them, meaning that a French deployment would drag NATO into a potential frontal clash against Russia. France would have to depend on Poland, Romania and Moldova for access and logistics and on NATO infrastructure for C5ISR, fuel and ammunition. If this makes France party to the conflict, wouldn’t this make Poland, Romania and Moldova also party to the conflict?
Why has Macron suddenly changed his tone/attitude toward Russia?
This is quite a change of tone for President Macron: Back in September 2022, he was a proponent of diplomacy! Speaking to French ambassadors gathered at the Elysée Palace, Macron questioned the decision in western capitals to close lines of communication with the Kremlin.
“The job of a diplomat is to talk to everybody and particularly to the people we disagree with,” he said at his yearly address on foreign policy. “Who wants Turkey to be the only world power that is talking to Russia? … We must not give in to any form of mistaken morality that would seek to weaken us.”
Macron once said: “Russia should not be humiliated so that we can prepare for a future diplomatic exit ramp”. Considering that he is now (less than two years later) talking about Russia as an existential threat to the whole of Europe and has joined in the narrative/hysteria that should Russia win in Ukraine, the rest of Europe would be next, this is quite the presidential U-turn. What has prompted this? There are several theories at play.
Theory 1) In his speech of September 2022, Macron pleaded for diplomacy with Russia but also said this: “We want to work towards either a victory for Ukraine or a negotiated peace reached with conditions that are acceptable to Ukraine”. Maybe, just maybe, he now believes neither of the two conditions above can be met?
Theory 2) Russia/Wagner in Africa
Françafrique is Paris’ area of influence in Africa in general and in the Sahel region in particular. There, ex-French colonies have been “locked” in a monetary union with their former colonial master since independence. They use the CFA franc which is tied to the Euro, successor of the French Franc. This monetary union (There are three distinct ones, to be technical) has had positive consequences for those countries, such as low inflation rates. They have also had negative consequences, too, such as depending on Paris for exports (while France can access their natural resources at a favourable rate), low economic growth and increased French influence in the political and economic life of those countries.
Since independence, those countries have often been ruled by leaders usually friendly toward Paris… But things have started to change! Central African Republic, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali have all experienced coups and/or political changes that have led to new leaders/juntas more hostile toward France and more friendly toward Moscow… Wagner troops have deployed in CAR, Burkina Faso and Mali to take over French troops in their anti-insurgency role against Islamists. Some of those countries, such as Niger and Chad, have also requested that US military personnel also leave.
Should those countries pull out of the CFA Franc/Monetary union with France, Paris would lose its preferential market access to the region’s minerals, including uranium and oil…
Theory 3) NATO power vacuum. US President Biden is being distracted by the conflict in Israel. Meanwhile, a $60bn aid package for Ukraine was blocked by the US Congress between the 6th of December and the 22nd of April. Then, there is the possibility of Donald Trump becoming US president again. Donald Trump is seen as a threat to the alliance. He is not against NATO per se, but has threatened many times to pull the US out of it if the other member states (“the Europeans”) do not meet their defence spending targets. Washington has assumed the position of leader of the alliance for a very long time. Now that the American leadership is fading, who better than Macron to lead NATO?!
Theory 4) EU power vacuum. With the German government paralysed by post-war guilt and divisions, German chancellor Olaf Scholz is unable to take the lead within the EU. Meanwhile, London is no longer part of the club… This leaves France as the only potential leader of the bloc.
Combine theory 3) and 4) with the (engineered) threat of a Russian threat to the European continent and President Macron may have seen a huge opportunity for an old French project: A European Army! French Prime Minister René Pleven submitted a proposal for a “European Defence Community” to the French National Assembly in October 1950. It called for the creation of a European Army to be placed under supranational authority and to be funded by a common budget.
Theory 5) The rise of the far-right in Europe and incoming European elections. Forecasters expect a sharp right turn at the next European elections (June 2024). The coalition currently in power fears it might lose its majority. As a result, centrist and left-wing lawmakers have added extra voting sessions in the hope of pushing through a maximum of new policies before the incoming elections. A majority of right-wing and far-right parties in Europe are opposed to the proxy war the EU and NATO wage against Russia in Ukraine. Their manifestos are more focussed on issues closer to their electorates and closer to home: Cost of living crisis/fall in purchasing power, broken housing market, immigration and so on. The war in Ukraine would suddenly take a back seat in the EU parliament. President Macron might be trying to push European countries into action ahead of the elections, an electroshock of sorts.
It can also be said in this optic that this narrative is aimed at the French electorate. The Macron government is not very popular at home at the moment. The European elections are just around the corner (June 2024) and the French far-right led by Lepen is ahead in the polls. Marine Lepen has finished second at the last two presidential elections and would like to gain momentum ahead of the next presidential election scheduled for 2027. The upcoming European elections might act as a springboard. In France, as elsewhere in Europe, the war in Ukraine has been extremely divisive: Pro-Ukraine leaders have stymied any calls for diplomacy, negotiations, dialogue or Realpolitik by bullying anyone advocating talking to Moscow by labelling them as “pro-Russia” or “pro-Putin”. The same thing happens online with NAFO bullies and in the press, where any calls for diplomacy is decried as “collaboration” and ridiculed or ostracised.
Marine Lepen’s Rassemblement National party has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but has also been opposed to training Ukrainian troops and sending military aid to Ukraine as it could make France party to the conflict. The RN has consistently been opposed to sanctions levelled against Russia. Meanwhile Marine Lepen has condemned the “imperial vision” and “dangerous war-mongering attitudes” of the European Union.
Taking a hardline against Russia would show a clear separation/difference between Macron’s Renaissance party and Lepen’s Rassemblement National. By doing this, Macron adopts the attitude of a strong pro-Ukraine war leader while getting in a position where he can criticise Lepen’s “pro-Russia” bias. It is easy enough to do considering that Lepen’s (then) Front National party (same party, previous name) contracted a loan form a Russian bank in 2014 when French banks refused to do business with her.
Theory 6) Macron is an opportunist. He worked as a senior civil servant at the Inspectorate General of Finance before quitting so he could take a highly paid job with the Rothschild bank in 2008. This was despite being a member of the left-wing Socialist Party! In 2012, he got himself a senior role in President François Hollande’s staff at the Elysée palace. This was not a happy time for him as he clashed with his colleagues with his proposals for “right-wing” reforms. He quit in June 2014 but somehow managed to get promoted as Minister of Economics and Industry two months later!
While in post, Macron pushed forward several reforms that were seen as too “liberal” within his own country. On the French political spectrum, Liberalism is seen as right-wing while Radicalism is seen as left-wing. Here was a liberal man in a radical party!
In 2016, Macron left the PS to found his own party: “En Marche”, a Centrist party. He won the 2017 French presidential election.
Here is a man who used the Socialist Party as a ladder. The party gave him opportunities and upward mobility. He gained experience and notoriety within the party and government apparatus and jumped ship to create his own party and become president of the French Republic when the time was right and his star was near its zenith. He was seen as too “right wing/capitalist” within the Socialist Party. Yet, Emmanuel Macron reportedly branded his own finance minister a hypocrite in April 2024 for urging a “Thatcherite” overhaul of France’s “nanny state”… He is neither left-wing nor right-wing. Neither pro or anti anything. Macron is not a man of principles, he is an opportunist and will be whatever he needs to be at any given moment.
So his current anti-Russia posture could simply be him sensing an opportunity at gaining a higher profile (within France, the EU, NATO and the international community at large) and seizing it,
Theory 8) President Macron is young. During the Cold War, pragmatism and diplomacy were seen as essential to preserve peace. Communication channels remained open and Realpolitik always trumped political dogmas. The main reason for this is that back then, our leaders had known war and the devastation that followed it. There were major ideological differences between East and West, but realism prevailed.
The art of compromise has been lost. Western diplomacy has been in shambles since 1991. We no longer have intelligent, moderate, grounded and inspirational leaders or diplomats.
Macron is young. He is part of a new generation of western leaders that has not known war and deprivation. Ambitious, proud, arrogant, he is part of a cast of men (and women) who believe their own hype and do not appreciate being told “no”. They were never involved in high-stakes negotiations on the global/geopolitical stage and neither have their advisors. Macron is a man who attained power in the era of hyperactive communication on social media, where presence and visibility are more important than substance. Slogans and sound bites are all that matter in today’s Instagram and Twitter-ready populist era of Identity Politics. Approval seeking and virtue signalling behaviours count for more than tangible results. This is not to say Macron is the only one. Many in Europe and the US are of his ilk. All of them being Career Politicians bellowing hollow promises and dogmatic statements on a daily basis in the hope of remaining in the limelight… A whole cast completely disconnected (and disinterrested) from their respective citizens and from real life. The public, numbed after more than 20 Western military operations abroad over the past 30 years and distracted by a dire situation at home, no longer reacts or responds. This class of politician has never been punished for its failings and never had to apologise for its many mistakes. They have never had to worry about being accountable.
One can see every day leaders, personalities, journalists and experts urging, egging one another to up the ante against Russia, to cross Moscow’s red lines, to ignore the risks of conflict on a global scale. To escalate. They are blind to the consequences because their mind cannot fathom them. They have no reference to compare them against. Those verbal escalations and the drive to coerce the rest of us into toeing the line or remaining silent can also be seen on social media. In an era where people claim to be open minded, tolerant and accepting of all differences, differences of opinions are not tolerated.
Theory 7) A blend of all of the above, because politics and geopolitics are complex things influenced by many factors!
Risks associated.
Kherson is a Russian Oblast as far as Russian law and the Russian constitution goes. This might seem like a detail, but technically and legally speaking, from a Russian point of view, a French military incursion into the Kherson Oblast toward the Dnieper river would be seen as a foreign military invasion. No more and no less.
What if a French deployment leads to a Franco-Russian clash within Ukraine? What if Russia escalates? Moscow promised French military personnel would become priority targets inside Ukraine. Technically speaking, French troops deployed unilaterally inside Ukraine would not be covered by NATO’s article 5. So there is no direct risk of escalation. Saying that, NATO has already outreached its core role in Ukraine and is already a participant in this conflict. So the risk of an uncontrolled escalation is real. A Franco-Russian clash could lead to an escalation from both France and Russia, sucking in more troops, more resources, more people, more participants, until a point where WWIII is triggered. The most concerning point here is that our leaders seem to walk toward this trigger completely blind and unaware.
Our western leaders have been marching toward a conflict with Moscow completely blind since the early 1990’s. Far from being the enlightened rulers they like to think they are, they have constantly been one step behind Moscow, underestimating the Russian resolve to resort to politics by other means should Russian red lines be crossed…
In 2008, (American ambassador to Russia) William J. Burns sent his now famous “Nyet means nyet” telegram to NATO and Washington describing Russian opinion regarding a potential NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. This document is quite foreshadowing! Our leaders ignored or decided not to heed the warning. 6 months later, our leaders were taken by surprise when Russian troops entered Georgia!
See the Burns cables here: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
In March 2009, Washington attempted a “Reset” with Moscow. All the while, investing money to buy influence within Ukraine. In 2013, after (Ukrainian) president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement openly hostile to Russia, unrest in Kiev spiralled out of control, leading to a fully fledged revolution, coup and civil war, splitting the country in two. The international community at large, and the EU in particular, decided to ignore the clues that pointed to the fact that the coup may have been partly sponsored by Washington. When Russian “Little Green Men” appeared in Crimea on the 27th of February 2014, our western leaders were once again taken by surprise! They were even more surprised when Russian armed forces units directly engaged AFU personnel in the Donbass in Zelenopillya on the 11th of July 2014!
From 2015 onward, the EU did its best to fool Moscow and encourage Kiev not to implement the Minsk Protocol while the west armed and trained the AFU. Russia reiterated its security concerns (mainly centered on NATO expansion into Ukraine) on the 17th of December 2021. Moscow’s request for negotiations was literally laughed out of the room. And yet, our leaders were incredulous when Russian forces entered Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022! They reacted to this invasion by promising Kiev all the financial and military support it would need while imposing thousands of sanctions against the Russian Federation and Russian citizens. When Kiev sent envoys to Gomel in late February 2022 to negotiate with the Russians, EU partners sabotaged the talks by promising even more military and financial help to Kiev. They did so twice more that year, believing that their actions would enable Ukraine to defeat Russia militarily.
A lot of money, hope and hardware was invested in Ukraine ahead of the much anticipated and vaunted AFU counteroffensive of 2023. It was thought this, combined with Western sanctions and Russian diplomatic isolation, would be sufficient to defeat Russia on the battlefield. Again, our leaders were left surprised when the Ukrainian offensive did not return the desired results. There was no plan B.
Now, our leaders are even more surprised because the Russia they described as short on men, money, ammunition and hardware back in 2022, is currently on the offensive and gaining ground, all the while outproducing the western bloc in military hardware and ammunition manufacturing. Their masterplan for this “new and unexpected” state of affairs? More money and more arms to Ukraine coupled with more sanctions against Russia, in short, more of the same! If it does not work, try again! But this time with added fearmongering: Now, the EU is apparently locked in a battle for survival against a resurgent Russia! This is despite Stoltenberg once saying that “a Western promise of no more NATO enlargement was a (Russian) precondition for not invading Ukraine” and that “Putin invaded a European country to prevent further NATO expansion”. Meanwhile, US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith recently said: “To be really clear, we do not have indicators or warnings right now that a Russian war is imminent on NATO territory.”
Our leaders have constantly underestimated Russian resolve and capabilities. We have constantly ignored warnings and red lines. There is a real risk our leaders will lead us into WWIII without even noticing it… They are strangers to a world where their own words and actions have consequences. The West instigated this war by inviting Ukraine to join NATO in 2008, at a time when NATO did not need additional member states/troops to fulfill its core mission and when Russia was more than happy to trade and cooperate across many fields with the West. Said West carried on instigating the war by encouraging a coup in Ukraine in 2013. It put this war in motion by encouraging Ukraine not to respect the Minsk agreements. It initiated the war by rejecting Russian demands to discuss Russian security concerns in December 2021. The West torpedoed any chances of a negotiated peace when it sabotaged the Gomel negotiations in February 2022, the Istanbul talks in April 2022 and a Turkish initiative in August 2022. The EU and NATO rejected any and every opportunity to take the off-ramp, to choose pragmatism, to negotiate, to compromise.
Back on to our French deployment in Ukraine: Realistically, we are closer to the flashpoint than our leaders realise: Neither France alone nor the EU can command, control and supply 60,000 troops. This is a job only NATO (or Washington) could do. Either publicly or underhand. Moscow knows this. Either way, the door is open for a direct NATO-Russia confrontation in Ukraine.
On the 4th of April 2024, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “In fact, Russia-NATO relations have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation. NATO is already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine (and) continues to move towards our borders and expand its military infrastructure towards our borders.”
As a reminder, Putin said in February that a direct conflict between Russia and NATO would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three.
Final thoughts.
Is Ukraine in such a bad situation?
Our media and leaders have relentlessly been telling us that Ukraine was winning between September 2022 (when the AFU retook swathes of the Kharkiv Oblast and parts of the Nikolayev and Kherson oblasts) and December 2023 when the Ukrainian summer counteroffensive wound down. Our leaders, the western blogging community (OSINT) and mainstream media have been telling us throughout 2023 that Kiev was winning this war, that Russia was isolated; that the Russian armed forces were suffering unsustainable casualties, were inept, running out of men, tanks, ammunition and fuel. So why are some of our (western) leaders, led by Macron, suddenly talking about deploying troops inside of Ukraine? Surely, if the AFU was winning, this option would not be needed…
Starting late 2023/early 2024, the mood started to change in the media. At first, they did not talk about a Ukrainian defeat, but about how Ukraine was struggling on the battlefield. Then, over the past couple of months, some media have published headlines warning that Ukraine was potentially at risk of losing this war.
Who is telling the truth?
Since the beginning of the war, we have never been told the truth about the state of the Ukrainian armed forces or its losses. President Zelensky said in February 2024 that the AFU only suffered 31,000 KIAs while inflicting nearly half a million casualties on the Russian armed forces. Yet, The Washington Post claimed on the 8th of March that following an internal audit, the AFU admitted that “it was missing” 700,000 men. Several sources said Ukraine needed to mobilise an additional 500,000 troops to shore up its armed forces. Kiev has also said it needed an additional half a million men, but that draft dodging led 600,000 men of fighting age to escape abroad. American personalities such as Scott Ritter and Colonel Douglas Macgregor regularly cite 500,000 Ukrainian KIAs. In January 2024, ex-Ukrainian interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko claimed that around 30,000 Ukrainian troops were now being killed or badly wounded on a monthly basis and that the total casualty toll for wounded and killed in the war is around 500,000.
It was never about the Ukrainian people, but about the strategic piece of real-estate called Ukraine. It was always about pride and the age-old European (and transatlantic) obsession with controlling/containing/neutralising Russia. As Boris Johnson reiterated in the Daily Mail on the 13th of April 2024: “If Ukraine falls, it’ll be a catastrophic point in history and an utter humiliation for the West; It will be the end of Western Hegemony”.
Now, with the AFU seemingly struggling, with western coffers and arsenals looking increasingly bare and with western armament industry output looking asthmatic, we are still rejecting peace. When Pope Francis called for peace talks in Ukraine in March 2024, he was criticised.
NATO and the EU will only accept one scenario, it seems: A Russian defeat and President Zelensky’s maximalist goal/demand that Ukraine recovers its 1991 borders, joins NATO and that Russia gives up the lands gained/conquered since 2014 and the Russian speaking population living on it. However, the sudden talks of Western intervention in Ukraine coupled with our media now churning out articles and opinion pieces describing the real risk of a Ukrainian defeat shows that our western leaders have probably started to doubt Ukraine’s ability to achieve those goals!
In what can only be called a demonstration of “Perception Management” (Non-Kinetic combat in the field of information), our leaders are altering the narrative: Russia was losing the war two years ago. Now, it is about to take over the whole of Ukraine and if allowed to do so, will rush to invade “many” other countries. The safety and prosperity of Europe depends on a Russian defeat… Our own leaders use the same propaganda tools Kiev has been using since the beginning of the war in order to internationalise the conflict.
Many of our western leaders have staked everything on a Ukrainian victory/Russian defeat. They underestimated Moscow’s resilience and expected the odd 16,000 sanctions levelled against Russia to bring about a swift russian defeat. They are proud, ambitious and arrogant. They do lack the ability, honesty or willingness to admit they made a mistake and now that their bet seems to backfire on them, they seem to be ready to “escalate to de-escalate” instead.
To sum it up, the fear of a potential Ukrainian defeat in the medium term might be the logical instigating cause behind Macron’s offer to deploy French (and other foreign) troops in Ukraine, after all. Save face in the short term and deal with the consequences later…