Faced with V. Putin, E. Macron declares that France was ready to guarantee Ukrainian territorial integrity

Between the migrant crisis on the Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian borders, and the new concentration of forces on the Ukrainian borders, the Kremlin has been unfolding for several weeks a good part of its capacities to mobilize hybrid actions to create discord and disunity between Europeans , and in the trans-Atlantic link. In the end, it may well be that this time Vladimir Putin has gone a step too far. Indeed, after the evocation recourse to Article IV of NATO by the 3 European countries targeted by the organized crisis in Minsk, then the announcement from London deploys 800 British troops to Ukraine to confirm Britain's commitment to Moscow, it is France's turn to get fully involved in this crisis.

On the occasion of a telephone call between the French and Russian heads of state, Emmanuel Macron thus, according to Agence France Presse, announced to his counterpart Vladimir Poutine that France was now ready to "guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine". According to the same AFP report, the Russian president informed Emmanuel Macron that he intended to propose a de-escalation plan to ease tensions. This is the first time that France has also taken a direct position in the latent conflict between Moscow and Kiev, marked by the annexation of Crimea in 2014, then in a hybrid war including heavy resources supported from the Kremlin in the Donbass. , which led Paris to cancel the sale of the two Mistral class BPCs to the Russian Navy.

According to Western intelligence, 90.000 Russian soldiers have taken up position near the Ukrainian border, with heavy resources. In total, there are now 115.000 soldiers, airmen and sailors who find themselves ready to act against Ukraine. The United States had, in this regard, informed its European allies of the likely imminence of Russian military action in Ukraine last week. As for the Russian president, he announced that the Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia would start an armed action during the winter. This is not the first time that such a concentration of Russian forces has given rise to reactions of great concern in Ukraine and the West, the most recent having taken place last March, when 110.000 Russian servicemen were dispatched to and along Crimea. the eastern Ukrainian border.

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