French President Emmanuel Macron shows no sign of backing down on his bellicose rhetoric related to the war in Ukraine as he said in an interview published over the weekend that at “some point,” Western ground operations in Ukraine may be necessary.
“Maybe at some point—I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative—we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” Macron told the newspaper Le Parisien. “France’s strength is that we can do it.”
Macron sparked controversy last month when he said NATO shouldn’t rule out sending troops to Ukraine, a position he has now reaffirmed multiple times. His comments brought attention to the fact that a small number of NATO troops are already inside Ukraine, but Macron appears to be talking about a major deployment for combat against Russia despite the risk of nuclear war.
In the early days of the war, Macron was one of the few NATO leaders who kept in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said that diplomacy that took into account Russia’s security concerns would be necessary to end the conflict. But now, Macron has adopted the maximalist demands of the Zelensky government.
In an interview on French TV last week, Macron claimed there could be no peace without Ukraine taking Crimea. “We are doing everything we can to help Ukraine defeat Russia, because I will say it very simply: there can be no lasting peace if there is no sovereignty, if there is no return to Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, including Crimea,” he said.
Macron’s reckless comments come as Ukraine is losing significant territory to Russia on the battlefield. Ukrainian forces have stepped up attacks on Crimea and the Russian mainland, which risk a major escalation as Russia views the operations as supported by the West.
A leaked recording of a conversation between German military officers revealed that British soldiers are “on the ground” in Ukraine to help fire Storm Shadow missiles, which have been used frequently to target Crimea. The Economist reported last year that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia use Western-provided intelligence.
What does Z boy have on this guy? I mean, besides all the occult worship.
Macaroni should remember what happened the last time a French leader picked a fight with the Russians.
I mentioned this, but was mocked by sock puppets. Even the Crimean War that resulted in handing that territory to the Turks, France initiated the peace talks with the Tzars because they sustained the most casualties.
Oops. Forgot about that war.
Yes. 19th Centiry wars are exactly the same as 21st Century wars.
No no, it’ll be DIFFERENT this time – France will attack in SPRING and have won BEFORE Winter sets in. Napoleon & Hitler’s mistake was waiting for first frost before launching their invasions.
Or the last World War France participated in
Just like Putin should remember what happened the last time he picked a fight with the Ukrainians.
Yeah, that war isn’t going too good for him, is it?
His rhetoric isn’t even about how or why, it’s about when, which is worse. Either he’s trying to probe the field for opinions (which he knows the people don’t want it), but as far as he can get, his opinion that matters to him are the Assembly’s and since he has a relative majority to support him, he can go do what he wants despite the people’s opinions.
Or, which isn’t better, he’s trying to prepare us for the worst. Remember when they said “we will not send tanks and missiles?” Turns out they did months after it. This hasn’t sparked a big reaction. This is nobody’s secret that there are Western troops down in Eastern Europe. How will we react when Macron makes it official, that there will be troops fighting for real?
Or he’s just trying to be bold, brave, and stupid and be the supporter #1 in case if Biden loses it in November.
I don’t think Russia trusts Trump, not after he withdrew the U.S. from two crucial treaties with Russia, then presented Kiev with weapons. With his current monetary mess, I don’t think Mr. Trump can again get bailed out again by a Russian bank.
Russia loves Trump.
And Carlson.
After voting, Russians were invited to get a picture with a cardboard Carlson.
https://static.nv.ua/shared/system/Article/posters/002/847/954/original/fcded2c80777219e12e7d7c5613377f0.jpg?q=85&stamp=20240315185712&w=600
French banksterism is afraid of the French people. The anti democracy ruling France may be strong enough to wound Russia but the French people will pay. That is Macron’s cowardly stab in the back to bolster bankster power.
Testing … testing …. test …
This is how bad ideas become common … repeat them often and with a sense of inevitability.
One cause for this war lies in maritime and military access to the Black Sea. The Soviet Union had three significant ports on that Sea: Odessa, Sevastopol, and Mariupol. When the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine got all three and Russia got zero. Putin does what any Czar or Czarina would have done and did: get them by military force. He got them. For now.
The rational solution is: Ukraine keeps Odessa and Mariupol. Russia gets Sevastopol.
The Current War is just more than this land corridor and the BS of protecting Russian separatists, it is about taking the entirety of Ukraine and thus its natural resources which let alone is a gigantic gold mine with grain and untapped reserves of Natural Gas and Oil.
So, I guess you see it all as a grand conspiracy by Biden, Nuland, Blinken & Sullivan to push all those resources into Russia’s hands. Because that certainly is how it’s playing out. And it would not have happened without their coordinated efforts. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to credit Trump, Pompeo & Hill for supplying extra weapons and ammunition to nudge the Ukrainians along between 2016 and 2020.
That may have been in the initial documents signed by Ukraine and Russian negotiators. We may never know, because we sicced Boris to Ukraine to stop the process that could have ended the war two years ago.
And Boris got there a day after Lavrov publicly nixed the “initial document.”
What do you think was the point of Boris’ visit?
I ask this because Britain remains the poodle and is also among the most aggressive supporters of the NATO contribution to the proxy war, if not the most aggressive.
Ukraine is losing significant territory because cowardly skinflints like Trump and Johnson and their MAGA horde, not to mention the 5th column here at antiwar, have conspired to cut off their ammo.
I doubt that’s true, but I guess I’ll have to consult with the people at Antiwar.com’s Bureau In Control of International Ammo Distribution to confirm one way or another.
Do I ask you or Tech Support about my .308 Remington shipment for Taureggian rebels that Antiwar’s seller profile on Amazon ASSURES me was shipped Jan 14th ??
That was probably Carl’s fault. He’s new here.
Trump is definitely a Putin fan-boy and the MAGA GOP is in lockstep but the dam may break. Certain GOPers are pushing back.
European allies are “finding” artillery ammo — most likely from Russian allies. Hahaha.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/czech-republic-buys-ammunition-ukraine-111900747.html
I love it!
I don’t think so. You have to remember, Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from two crucial treaties with Russia, then shipped weapons (Javelin anti-tank) to Kiev.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hungarian-leader-says-trump-will-end-the-war-in-ukraine-by-not-giving-a-penny/ar-BB1jHLiu
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-shocked-advisers-with-praise-and-admiration-for-hitler-and-putin-book/ar-BB1jLlWL
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-kyiv-donald-trump-5f078708100b7c4950f86571a035b56d
No, Ukraine is losing significant territory because Z listened to Johnson and didn’t take the peace on the table April of ‘22.
Macron is wrong.
He needs to let Putin do whatever he wants in Ukraine and when Putin is finished, Macron should let him do the same to the next country.
In the name of Peace, of course.
Macron is talking in his sleep. While sleepwalking toward WWIII. Because, if NATO engages Russia in battle, hell will break loose. Literally.
That is my fear. We can thank Obama and Biden for this mess. When they manufactured the coup in 2014, sending the “cookie lady, Nuland to promote “Yats” as the replacement for the democratically elected president of Ukraine (because he had a better deal for Ukraine with the Russians), it started the march to the war. The latest demonstration of stupidity was our administration sending Boris to stop the negotiations to end the war. A tragedy, because both parties had signed the basic document to end the war.
DRINK!
Yes. First, Obama publicly belittling Russia and instigating the 2014 coup, which set up Biden to draw Russia to either invade Ukraine or else have NATO on its own doorstep. Biden & his neocon crew were certain that they had Russia in a bear-trap and that US economic sanctions would cause Russia to collapse after the invasion. And because of that false confidence, Biden left himself with no exit strategy. His only strategy is to keep ratcheting forward. It is genuinely tragic.
Poor, poor Russia. Everybody’s picking on them!
By sending surrending French to Ukraine, Macron will overwhelm Putin’s POW camps. Genius!
Macron has a 68% disapproving rating in polls. Like many corrupt politicians before him, he wants to use war as a stepping stone to get out of his rat hole. He does not care if this could lead to a nuclear war with Russia and possibly kill millions of people.
What a low class bum!
https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/
And do you know who also does not care about this war?
The very guy that started that war, dipsh!t Putin.
That 68% is the same polling number for Israeli citizens who are cheering on the IDF with the ethnic cleansing/genocide, actually believing the IDF is not killing enough Palestinians. Astonishing.
Macron is a total idiot…!
If it comes to pass, I suggest he take up a weapon and man the front. And take along another pair of trousers.
I’d recommend the brown trousers.
“France’s strength is that we can do it.” HAHAHAHAHA! As Scott Ritter has pointed out, France can barely put one brigade on the ground – and it would be annihilated almost immediately. Putin has basically said so.
As Martyanov says daily, this is what you get when national leaders have zero comprehension of the military balance. You get military adventurism which in this case can lead directly to nuclear WWIII. While Russia dropping hypersonic missiles with conventional warheads on France would not necessarily mean nuclear war, what happens when the equally ignorant US leaders decide to join in? That’s the risk Macron doesn’t comprehend – or perhaps he’s stupid enough to make these threats because he assumes the US will come to his rescue and Russia will then back down – which it won’t.
In recent history both Napoleon and Hitler sent troops into Russia.
Macron wants to be the third loser in Russia in a little over 200 years.
French losses: 434,000 – 500,000
284,000- 350,000 dead
100,000 killed in combat
200,000 died from other causes
50,000 died in captivity
50,000 wounded
50,000 deserted
50,000 prisoners
German loses:
5.1 million dead
4.5 million killed or missing in action
600,000 died in captivity
4.5 million captured
Maybe he’ll just have them surrender instead?
It’s a form of mental illness. He’s had this condition for quite a while. I believe it’s called Bloviation Tremor, or some such…
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/03/getting-math-right.html
Getting The Math Right. Andrei Martyanov.
Getting The Math Right…
… I repeat–Russian MoD gives numbers of VSU losses based on objective control. That is physically identifying bodies of VSU KIAs and wounded primarily at the line of combat contact. Russian MoD does not give estimates of KIAs and wounded in the tactical, let alone operational rear of VSU because it cannot reliably count them. E.g. a couple of days ago VKS dropped two 1,500 kg KABs on top of the Kraken Nazi battalion. The only thing which was known is that there have been 300 of them–nobody survives two KABs, so MoD stated with a degree of reliability that UP TO 300 Nazis have been wiped out. But, as I repeat ad nauseam–the real number of VSU KIAs is much higher than the total number of losses Russian MoD estimated at 444,000.
And here is the professional who says the same, and he is from NATO.
Ukraine’s losses in the conflict with Russia should be counted “in the millions,” the former chief of the Polish General Staff, Rajmund Andrzejczak, has claimed. Kyiv “is losing the war” and does not have the resources to sustain the fight against Moscow, he added. In an interview with the Polsat broadcaster on Monday, the retired general described Ukraine’s battlefield situation as “very dramatic” and insisted that “there are no miracles in war.”
And here is the part that matters:
“They are missing over 10 million people. I estimate that the losses should be counted in the millions, not hundreds of thousands. There are no resources in this country, there is no one to fight.”
The point I make non-stop. Considering forces involved, fire density, stand-off weaponry, duration, and length of front it is clear that KIAs alone are above one million. How much above–I don’t know, but the same way that “Stalin” couldn’t have killed or imprisoned “tens of millions” people in the USSR, because it defies basic statistical methods and math and empirical evidence of 150 million living Russians, the same is true for the numbers by Russian MoD which are issued strictly on confirmed data with any, even highly justified, assessments removed due to insufficient probability. Numbers will change and will grow dramatically, the more the Russian Army moves to the West.
Meanwhile, RUSI’s US Army’s Lt.Colonel Vershinin has a DUH! moment. LOL!
“In attritional wars, military operations are shaped by a state’s ability to replace losses and generate new formations, not tactical and operational maneuvers,” retired US Army lieutenant colonel Alex Vershinin explained in a Royal United Services Institute commentary, “The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine,” published Monday. Unlike maneuver warfare, which is aimed at quickly and violently defeating an enemy, the attritional fight takes time, maybe years. “The side that accepts the attritional nature of war and focuses on destroying enemy forces rather than gaining terrain is most likely to win. The West is not prepared for this kind of war,” he said. Vershinin noted that Western militaries have long seen attritional conflicts as exceptions to be avoided at all costs in favor of shorter, maneuver-focused clashes. Rather than a “decisive battle” through maneuver warfare, “attritional warfare focuses on destroying enemy forces and their ability to regenerate combat power while preserving one’s own,” he wrote, noting that a successful attritional strategy “accepts that the war will last at least two years.”
I have news for Vershinin, in a conventional war with Russia there will be NO NATO maneuvers–there will be wiping out of C2 in the operational and strategic rear and after that, after mighty F-35s will be shot down, any large enough formations will be detected and then annihilated by stand-off weapons. Thus, for the US Army alone 3,600 casualties a day–well, good luck sustaining this for more than two weeks. I repeat: The Gulf War was an anomaly sold to the unsophisticated public through media as some kind of future warfare which it was not. One cannot learn real war from that turkey shoot. And they didn’t.
P.S. An immensely important statement by Putin today:
Путин: Россия помнит о преступлениях власовцев и не простит новых предателей
Putin: Russia remembers the crimes of Vlasovites and will not forgive new traitors.
Somewhere, Solzhenitsyn is choking in hell.”
I don’t know whether Lindsay Graham, Emmanuel Macron, and their ilk read Andrei’s work.
They need to sit down for a few hours and reflect on the negative repercussions for NATO that Andrei presents.
Russia may launch nuclear strikes against Washington, Seattle, Paris, and Brussels–among other cities. I’m not bothered by that possibility for someone in their mid-60s. I’m only thinking of humanity and those who have never lived a life of possibilities.