As of: April 5, 2024, 5:22 a.m
By: Patrick Mayer
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According to a report, French President Emmanuel Macron is considering NATO soldiers in Ukraine to forestall a possible capture by Vladimir Putin.
Paris - What is he up to, the imperialist in the Kremlin? The brutal ruler from Moscow who launched the Ukraine war and with hundreds of thousands of soldiers attacked the neighboring western country that had just turned to the European Union (EU).
Ukraine war: Paris probably fears a major Russian attack on Odessa
In other words: What attack is the warmonger from Russia planning next? This is the question politicians are asking themselves between Ukraine, Paris and Washington, while Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin continues his cautious policy in the bloody conflict. The French President has presented and positioned himself much more aggressively and loudly in recent weeks.
Why? As the always well-informed Italian daily
La Repubblica
now reports, Paris apparently fears a major Russian attack from Crimea on the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. In order to enable the Putin regime to use the city of over a million people as a bargaining chip to force a one-sided and hypocritical ceasefire with Kiev.
What is he up to? Moscow ruler Vladimir Putin. © IMAGO / SNA
Odessa a target for Vladimir Putin? Ukrainians attack Crimea from here
According to the report, Macron is linking his fears to the new wave of mobilization in the Russian Federation, with which Putin apparently wants to recruit up to 150,000 more soldiers for military service (or force them to do so). The number mentioned could be interpreted as an indication of a next Russian offensive in the summer of 2024, analyzes
La Repubblica
, which is based in Rome and, along with
Corriere della Sera,
is one of Italy's two major leading media.
Macron named the city of Odessa as the target of a possible major offensive by Putin because the Kremlin allegedly wants to create a corridor on the Black Sea to the breakaway and Moscow-friendly Transnistria in Moldova and thus deny Kiev access to the sea. Which, for example, would severely restrict the very important sector of agricultural exports. That's not all: the Ukrainian armed forces have apparently stationed their coastal batteries with the "Neptune" anti-ship missiles in the Odessa region, with which they are inflicting heavy losses on Russia's Crimean troops.
Odessa |
|
Location: |
in the south of Ukraine on the Black Sea not far from the border with Moldova |
Resident: |
1.01 million |
Characteristics: |
Most important port city and third largest city in Ukraine by population |
military importance of the region: |
Base for coastal batteries with Neptune anti-ship missiles; Base for surface drones Magura |
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The “Magura” surface drones, which are feared by the Russian Black Sea Fleet, are also launched from the coast of the Odessa Oblast.
La Repubblica
quotes an unnamed EU source from Brussels on the Odessa scenario: “At this point, the debate about sending soldiers to support Ukraine would no longer be theoretical but would become very concrete. And we Europeans would run the risk of being divided.”
Depending on the outcome of an offensive in the south, the Russian autocrat could unilaterally play the ceasefire card, the Italian daily's analysis continues. “We should be careful not to be naive if we are faced with a technical ceasefire that would only be a bluff by Moscow,” another unnamed source from the European Union is quoted as saying. A cause for concern: Political forces in the EU who want to stop arms deliveries to the Ukrainians would have one more argument to use with the “illusion of a ceasefire”.
Do you speak the same language in Ukraine politics? French President Emmanuel Macron (left) and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). © IMAGO / Political Moments
Moscow and Paris: Dispute over telephone conversation between Russia and France
At the beginning of April it became public that Macron wanted to push German Chancellor Scholz to take a tougher course on Ukraine. As the
Wall Street Journal
reported on Wednesday (April 3), the French President wanted to keep Putin's Kremlin regime in the dark about the West's "red lines" in the future and therefore proposed a corresponding change of strategy to US President Joe Biden and German Prime Minister Scholz before. The aim was a position of ambiguity towards Russia, wrote the American magazine.
Macron caused a stir internationally at the end of February when he no longer wanted to rule out the possibility of NATO ground troops being deployed in Ukraine in the future. After the first telephone conversation between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his French counterpart Sébastien Lecornu since October 2022, France clearly rejected a communication from Russia regarding the alleged content this Thursday (April 4). According to the Kremlin version, France had expressed its readiness for possible peace negotiations. From Paris it was said: “That’s not true. At no time have we shown any willingness to engage in dialogue about Ukraine or negotiations or anything like that.”
(pm)