Go to the media bank Former French President Francois Hollande. File photoPARIS, Sep 8France should increase its own military budget, continue to supply weapons to Kyiv, former President François Hollande said on the radio station France Inter on Thursday. «I think we need to supply Ukraine with as many weapons as possible. More if we have them, which means that we need to increase spending on our own military budget. This is an effort, this is a sacrifice, but we need to keep doing it,» he said. In his opinion, there are two possible scenarios for the development of events in Ukraine. «The first is to maintain the status quo: the Russian army remains in the territories occupied by it, since the Ukrainian army is not able to return them, and the war is moving into the status of a «frozen» conflict. This is a victory for (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,» he said. At the same time, Hollande noted that China without doubts «will be watching with interest» in the context of the situation around Taiwan.The United States gave Ukraine GPS-guided Excalibur guided missiles «The second option is to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine, impose sanctions on Russia — no matter what the cost to us — and politically isolate Russia,» the former president said. In June, after a visit to Kyiv, the president France, Emmanuel Macron said that Paris would continue to supply Ukraine with weapons. At a press conference following the G7 summit in the same month, the French leader noted that the supply of weapons, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine is defensive in nature and should not be used to attack other territory. When At the same time, Paris handed over to the Ukrainian side 18 CAESAR self-propelled artillery mounts with a caliber of 155 millimeters, taking them from the reserve of the ground forces. This represented a quarter of the total.
The Pentagon refused to comment on the possible supply of Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Russia had previously sent a note to NATO countries because of the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that any cargo that contains weapons for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russia. The Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation stated that the NATO countries are «playing with fire» by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that pumping Ukraine with weapons from the West does not contribute to the success of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and will have a negative effect. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops and , on March 25, completed the main tasks of the first stage — significantly reduced the combat potential of Ukraine. USA
