Ukraine enters interesting geopolitical game: Defense Express on Macron's troop deployment statement

He shared his opinions with Espreso TV.

"Due to the fact that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are repelling Russian attacks much more effectively than one could have imagined given the current resource shortage, our military has already recorded that the Russians will definitely not be able to achieve their planned ‘victory’ - to take Chasiv Yar - by May 9. Therefore, we need to talk about the motivation of Macron himself to make statements about the deployment of a foreign military contingent. I would outline that Macron is preparing for a possible deployment of French troops, regardless of what may happen at the front, but taking the perspective until the spring of 2025," the military expert said.

According to him, sometime in the spring of 2025, it will be technically possible to deploy a very large contingent of Western troops in Romania, including a French brigade of 5,000 people and several dozen CAESAR and Leclerc tanks.

"There should be a separate base on one of the Romanian airfields for 10,000 military personnel. We have just entered, I would say, an interesting geopolitical game where Macron has found a very good and long-lasting tool to constantly threaten the Russians, saying, look, we also know how to draw ‘red lines.’ And now we will regularly hear similar statements from Macron or other Western officials about the conditions under which they are ready to send their troops to Ukraine. However, this will not be correlated with the events on the battlefield, but rather with the vector of pressure on Russia chosen by our Western partners," summarized Ivan Kyrychevskyi.

• On February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said that in the future, the deployment of Western ground troops to fight Russian aggression should not be ruled out.
• On February 29, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that Western leaders should not rule out the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine.
• Czech President Petr Pavel said that support for Ukraine by NATO troops directly on its territory would not violate any international norms.
• At the same time, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that his country does not want to be a party to the war, so it will not deploy troops in Ukraine.
• On May 2, the French president told the Economist that he does not rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine and described the conditions under which this could happen.