As Western leaders met in Paris last night, their task was to send a clear message to Vladimir Putin on the second anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine.
They need to project resolve and unity as the war starts to shift in Moscow’s favour.
The French president’s comments should be seen in that light, not as part of an inexorable slide towards a Third World War.
On the face of it, for Emmanuel Macron to openly countenance the possibility of Western troops going to fight in Ukraine is a major development, even if he qualified it heavily saying there had been no consensus on the issue.
NATO as an alliance has not supported Ukraine in a military sense, sending non-lethal aid instead. But individual nations are sending arms and munitions in huge amounts, if not enough yet to enable Ukrainians to expel their unwanted invaders.
Now the French leader says it can’t be ruled out that Western soldiers might one day need to be sent too. This followed similar comments from Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico, who said some in the West are considering bilateral deals with Ukraine to put their boots on the ground there.
The reaction from the Kremlin has been predictable and swift. War between NATO and Russia would be “inevitable”, a spokesman said, in such an eventuality.
Sending Western troops to fight in Ukraine has been taboo because of the possibility it could lead to full-on war between NATO and Russia, with all that could ensue in a conflict between two heavily nuclear armed entities.
But a word of caution.
In war, words carry weight and have impact. Russia has engaged in a diplomatic offensive in recent weeks to conjure the sense the war is inevitably moving in its favour. “Resistance is foolish” is its message to Ukraine, as the Kremlin’s man in London recently told Sky News in an interview with Yalda Hakim.
Russia’s enemies and Ukraine’s backers need to push back against that narrative. They must insist the Western alliance is not weak and about to crumble against the inexorable force of Russian might.
So expect a concerted effort by Western leaders claiming they are in it to the bitter end, whatever it takes, and so on.
The difficulty for the West is the disconnect between rhetoric and action still. Ukraine has just been forced to concede ground in the town of Avdiivka and is under pressure in a number of other points on the front.
The reason? Lack of ammunition and behind that America’s failure to send billions of dollars more aid, held up by Republicans on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Until the West can meet its robust rhetoric with meaningful military support, Russia will be able to claim it is now beginning to prevail in this war, whatever the fighting talk of people like Mr Macron.
Leave a Reply