Macron addresses France on Ukraine's NATO future and winter strategy
Photo: French President Emmanuel Macron (Getty Images)
Supporting Ukraine protects France, and Ukraine itself has a place in NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron delivers this position to the French people following the European leaders' summit in Dublin.
Macron emphasizes that the events in Ukraine directly concern the French people. According to him, if Russia imposes its will on a European country by force, all of Europe will be weakened.
That is precisely why Ukraine was the focus of the ninth summit of the European Political Community and the informal European Council in Dublin.
The French President identifies aid to Ukraine this winter as the top priority. He says that recent contacts with US envoys have shown that Putin does not want negotiations. The Russian army is not advancing; on the contrary, it is retreating and suffering significant losses.
Therefore, according to Macron, Putin is relying on attacks against civilians and is trying to plunge Ukraine into darkness this winter. Europe must not let him achieve this by maintaining financial support and helping to protect power plants and power grids.
"Those who want to ration Ukraine's resources ultimately want to force it into an unjust peace, leave it permanently vulnerable, and thus leave Europe vulnerable too. That is a defeatist mindset. It is a recipe for the next war," Macron emphasizes.
The second priority is working toward a just and lasting peace, to which Europe must fully commit. At the European Political Community summit, 42 countries, at France's initiative, adopted a declaration on the principles of European security.
Macron also highlights the work of the Coalition of the Willing, which is preparing security guarantees for Ukraine and a multinational force to be deployed following a ceasefire. An exercise is currently underway in Poland to demonstrate the allies' readiness, and on Thursday, coalition members will gather in Berlin.
The summits in Dublin took place immediately after the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, during which, according to RBC-Ukraine sources, Russia refused to discuss a ceasefire. After that, Trump's envoys Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin in Moscow.
On the eve of the summits, Zelenskyy called on Europe to decide on a representative for the peace talks by the end of November.
The issue of Ukraine's NATO membership resurfaced in the talks. Zelenskyy said that the Americans had asked for the first time whether Ukraine would agree to withdraw from Donbas in exchange for NATO membership. The President reiterated that Ukraine would not cede its territory.
