French President Emmanuel Macron met with parliamentary parties on Thursday. During the meeting Macron said he was open to the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, as announced by, according to French newspaper L’Independant.
Fabien Roussel, a representative of the French Communist Party, said after the meeting that “Macron referenced a scenario that could lead to intervention [of French troops]: the advancement of the front towards Odesa or Kyiv.”
He noted that the French President showed parliamentarians maps of the possible directions of strikes by Russian troops in Ukraine.
Following the meeting, Jordan Bardella of the far-right National Rally party noted that “there are no restrictions and no red lines” in Macron’s approach.
I am in conflict about that move. But Macron at least tries to irritate Putin with his own definition of a „red line“, like „if you push to Odessa or Kyiv we will send troops“ maybe this is just the way of talking to Putin now, Russia always threaten Europe of nuclear strikes, their propaganda shitty tv shows is full of bombing Great Britain and sink the whole island, bombing or conquering Berlin again blah blah. They won’t because they can’t because of NATO and even without the US, Russia is not capable to conquer whole Europe, yet. So I think it is a good move in terms of threatening Putin with nato troops in Ukraine, because this is the only language he understands. On the other hand France is kinda safe when it comes to a conventional war, at least for a long time. Of course Germany is scared because it is not that far away, it is literally just Poland between Germany and russia and the German military is by far not able to fight a war against a well trained army with endless human resources.
France has nukes, Germany doesn’t. Meaning france can say whatever they want, the nuke-threat is empty against other nuke countries.
If they really wanna play putin’s stupid game, NATO should amass 200.000 troops not in or next to Ukraine, but elsewhere. 50.000 more near scandinavian border, 50.000 more baltics & poland, 50.000 turkey-georgia, 25.000 moldova/romania and, because why not, 25.000 somewhere near bering strait/alaska. All-in, tanks, plane, carriers, stand by on every other accessible border to russia. See how russia really handles that permanent land overstretch in every direction.
Germany has access to American nukes (nuclear sharing - they would be dropped by German pilots), which would be used if Russian tanks came even anywhere close to the border.
So it’s trump or Biden calling shots not scholz, big difference. And in most countries with US nukes: there is an American units base maintaining and safeguarding the weapons, it’s a big difference from France or UK and that reflects in politics.
I mean, NATO already does this. NATO countries have troops stationed in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. It’s a mixture of forces from different NATO countries spread all across the Russian border.
This exists because none of those nations want to be invaded by Russia, so we keep troops stationed there to protect them from exactly what happened to Ukraine. If Putin wants to go into any of those countries he has to take on fully modernised western militaries to do it. And attacking any NATO member would also lead to a wide front invasion across the board, which the Russian military is not equipped to counter.
It’s also part of projecting US/NATO air superiority over china and russia. We need to protect forward bases to maintain that pressure.
Poland has one of the most powerful militaries in Europe. If you think Russia’s been struggling in Ukraine, you haven’t seen anything yet. Since Poland joined the EU (and later, NATO) it’s become much more prosperous than it was under Soviet/Russian influence:
I very much doubt they are in even remotely the same league as France or the UK. The lack of nuclear weapons would be a hint, as would the inability to produce more than basic weapons systems on their own. Don’t get me wrong, they would be able to put up a fierce fight against Russia, but not on their own.
Poland stock market goes brrrrrrr.
Luckily they’re in NATO (and the eu), so they wouldn’t be left alone on a technicality as Ukraine.
well, we had a good run, ww3 is gonna be the end of us
Well if it was up to me I’d keep Ireland floating
Which is what they said…GB is England, Scotland & Wales.
You’re thinking of United Kingdom, which is short for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Note that the island of Ireland is 2 countries and you can’t sink one without sinking the other…unless you saw it in 2 first…
You clearly haven’t seen the russian tv broadcast showing their plan to nuke the ocean and create a tsunami that covers the british isles - very bond villain
They have their own version of FOX news
I would have gone with a giant satellite that shoots laser beams, but I guess that’s more of a North Korea thing
“please stop” never made a bully stop.
There is one important difference when it comes to what rhetoric is suitable between France and Russia, I think. Russia has control over the narrative within it’s land, about the media and limits free speech. If Russia doesn’t follow up on it’s threads, there are no internal consequences and externally, Russia might lose some credibility but still say an unpredictable danger. I think France has a lot more to loose when not following up on their threads / red lines. In terms of diplomacy with other countries, internally with the government appearing weak to its citizens and towards Russia too.
Personally I wouldn’t fear the Russian army. They’re only barely making incremental gains in Ukraine despite a massive advantage in numbers, artillery, and air power.
What I do fear is Putin getting scared of NATO calling his bluff and replying to Ukraine, before doing something insanely stupid with the 2000+ nukes in their national stockpile.
But we have 14K+ nukes, so jokes on him!