LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
French President Emmanuel Macron during a joint press conference with the Dutch Prime Minister this Monday, January 30 in The Hague.
WAR IN UKRAINE – As for the Leclerc tanks, the door remains ajar, under certain conditions. “Nothing is prohibited in principle”cautiously answered Emmanuel Macron this Monday, January 30, when he was questioned in The Hague on the hypothesis of sending fighter planes to Ukraine to help it fight the Russian invasion. One wish expressed five days earlier by the President of UkraineVolodymyr Zelensky.
And like the Leclerc tanks, the French president immediately wanted to list a number of basic conditions for such aid to see the light of day, almost a year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
He thus mentioned “criteria”before any decision, such as the fact that a ” request “ that is “formulated” by Ukraine and that this does not “be not escalatory” in the ongoing conflict. The Head of State also stressed that this hypothetical delivery should not be ” likely to touch Russian soil but to help the resistance effort” and that this “do not come to weaken the capacity of the French army”.
From the Netherlands, Emmanuel Macron therefore reiterated France’s position on the subject of deliveries of heavy weapons, while stressing that the Ukrainians “don’t make that request today”. Gold, “It is against these three criteria that we will continue to look on a case-by-case basis” deliveries of military equipment, he added.
“It would be a big step”
“It’s based on the requests that are made but not on the rumors that run” that the decisions are taken, underlined Emmanuel Macron again, specifying that the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Oleksiï Reznikov, was expected from Tuesday in Paris to interviews with his counterpart Sebastien Lecornu.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte stressed for his part that there was no “no taboo but it would be a big step” if fighter jets were delivered to kyiv. The Netherlands has not yet received a request from kyiv to this effect either, he said, approving the criteria set out by his French counterpart.
After several weeks of hesitation, Berlin decided on Wednesday to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine of German manufacture and to allow other European countries to supply similar armored vehicles to kyiv. But Germany will not send fighter jets to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday.
For its part, Paris is still cautious and is content for the moment to send light gear to kyiv. This is why the subject of fighter jets was put on the table on Monday, five days after the wish expressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in order to obtain Western-made fighter jets.
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