French President Emmanuel Macron believes that Ukraine’s entry into NATO would be experienced by Russia as a confrontation and that it is not the “most likely scenario”, in an interview with several media. “The entry of Ukraine into NATO would be perceived by Russia as something confrontational. It is not with this Russia that you can imagine,” he told the daily newspapers on Wednesday. French The worldAmerican wall street journal and lebanese An Nahar. “Whether or not Ukraine joins NATO – and this is not the most likely scenario – it will have to be given security guarantees that are all the more robust since it has been attacked by Russia”, continues -he.
The main information :
- The efforts of the Russian army on the Donetsk region.
- Sergei Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, visited his troops on the ground.
More strategic autonomy in Europe, less dependence on the United States
Emmanuel Macron insists on the need to grant “security guarantees” to Ukraine, but also to Russia at the end of the Ukrainian conflict, a position which has earned him strong criticism in kyiv and in Eastern Europe . “In the end, we will have to put everyone around the table. And so all the Europeans and Westerners who give me moral lessons explain to me who they will be sitting around the table with,” he said. he throws.
“I don’t want it to be the Chinese and the Turks alone who negotiate the next day,” he said, referring in particular to the mediation efforts of Turkish diplomacy. The French president also again pleaded for the strategic autonomy of Europe, within NATO, but with less dependence vis-à-vis the United States.
“There is no European security architecture without strategic autonomy, in NATO and with NATO, but not depending on NATO,” he stressed. “An alliance is not something I depend on, it’s something I choose (…) We must rethink our strategic autonomy,” he insisted. “Europe must gain technological and capacity autonomy, including in relation to the United States”, insisted the French president.
Ukraine: Russian military efforts focus on Donetsk region
The efforts of the Russian army in Ukraine are currently focused on capturing the entire Donetsk region in the east of the country, its chief of staff Valery Gerasimov said on Thursday. “The situation on the front line has stabilized, the main efforts of our troops are focused on completing the liberation of the territory of the People’s Republic of Donetsk” self-proclaimed by the pro-Russian separatists, Valery Gerasimov said.
According to him, the front line with the Ukrainian forces is currently 815 kilometers long. Valery Gerasimov claimed to have hit more than 1,300 “critical targets” in Ukraine, which he said “made it possible to significantly reduce the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces”. He also welcomed the use “for the first time in combat conditions” of Russian hypersonic weapons, such as the Kinjal missile.
Since a series of Russian military setbacks in northeastern and southern Ukraine between September and early November, most of the fighting is currently concentrated in the east, and in particular in the city of Bakhmout, which the troops of Moscow are trying to take since the summer. Faced with its setbacks, Russia opted from October for a tactic of massive bombardments on Ukrainian energy infrastructures, regularly causing power and water cuts.
Russian Defense Minister visited the front in Ukraine for an inspection
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the front line in Ukraine to inspect his army positions, his ministry said Thursday, the second such visit announced in less than a week. “On the front line”, Sergei Shoigu “checked the conditions of deployment of personnel and military equipment” and he “inspected the positioning areas of military units, the conditions of accommodation and heating of personnel”, specified the ministry on Telegram, accompanying his message with a video of the minister.