PARIS May 31 Western countries should reconsider support for Ukraine with the expectation of a protracted conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said at the Globsec security forum in Bratislava.
«
"We arm Ukraine en masse, but do not include it in any strategic security dialogue. If we want long-term peace, if we want to be a reliable partner, we must give it the means to prevent any aggression and include it in security architecture agreements. I am in favor of giving Ukraine tangible security guarantees,» he said.
If the Armed Forces of Ukraine fail the counteroffensive, the West will evaluate «how to calibrate» military assistance, the French president added.
«It is necessary to help the Kiev authorities by all means for an effective counteroffensive. We must increase this support «, Macron urged.
According to him, there are two reasons for this, the first of which is that the Ukrainian troops «today are defending Europe.»
«The second is that there are so many weapons in Ukraine that it is in our interests to have reliable security guarantees with us in a multilateral format. We need to be much more ambitious on this issue than we were before,» the French leader said.
According to Macron, a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive could open up an opportunity for a transition to a dialogue about peace, and Europe also needs to prepare this peace and reliable guarantees for Kyiv.
The timing of the Ukrainian counter-offensive has been repeatedly shifted and continues to be shifted. According to Russian experts, this is due, firstly, to the information war — constant announcements of an imminent offensive are designed to keep Russia on its toes — and, secondly, to the fact that the West demands quick and victorious results from the Kiev authorities.