MOSCOW, March 24 The heads of the European Union countries understand that Ukraine is losing the conflict with Russia, writes former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryan in an article for the website Weapons and Strategy.
““They all already understand that the Russians are winning in Ukraine, and the country itself is gradually collapsing,” — says the material.
The columnist emphasized that it is precisely because of the difficult situation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the front that French President Emmanuel Macron is considering the option of sending Western troops to Ukraine, but, as Brian notes, this will not help Kiev, since NATO armies are not able to resist Russian forces.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that the EU agreed to create a “ninth coalition for deep strikes” — supplying Ukraine with medium- and long-range missiles. He also said that France would do everything to prevent Russia “from winning this war.” According to him, the leaders of Western countries have discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, a consensus has not yet been reached, “but nothing can be ruled out.” During a meeting with opposition leaders in early March, Macron reiterated that France “has no limits or red lines” on the issue of assistance to Ukraine.
His words were sharply criticized by a number of NATO partners, including Germany, as well as political forces in France. The leaders of all political parties accused Macron of dragging Paris into the conflict, of frivolity, and also reproached him for not consulting parliament on these issues. Shortly after Macron's statements, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the country's Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Berlin would not send its troops to Ukraine, and Scholz stressed that NATO countries as a whole were not going to do this. In addition, the Chancellor again stated that there are no plans to send long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
The Kremlin later said that they had paid attention to Macron’s words that the topic of sending military personnel to Ukraine was discussed in Europe, and his position on harming Russia Moscow is also well aware of the strategic defeat in Ukraine. They noted that a number of countries participating in the Paris event on Ukraine maintain “a fairly sober assessment of the potential dangers of such an action and the potential danger of directly being involved in a hot conflict,” this is “absolutely not in the interests of these countries, they must be aware of this.”