Emmanuel Macron sure knows how to make a headline.
But did the French president, who once called Nato brain dead, really mean it when he said this week that Europe shouldn’t rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine to prevent Russia winning the war? Was it a trial balloon, an off-the-cuff soundbite uncoordinated with allies, or the start of a real strategic debate?
As ever, Macron’s bazooka had several targets: forcing European partners to consider how far they are prepared to go to avert a Russian victory; pressuring the US to go on arming Ukraine; keeping the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, off balance; hitting back at German criticism of France’s modest spending on assistance to Kyiv; and trying to wrongfoot domestic opponents in the forthcoming European parliament election campaign.
Above all, the French leader was grasping for the mantle of leadership of European and western support for Ukraine, just as US assistance is stymied by a Republican blockade in Congress at the behest of Donald Trump before the presidential election campaign.
First, the facts: Macron was speaking after chairing a summit of allied nations in support of Ukraine on Monday that mostly discussed ways to speed up arms and ammunition deliveries to Kyiv. The leaders did discuss the possibility of western military forces playing a role in Ukraine, though not in combat, according to several participants.
In his closing news conference, he delivered two strong (and new, in his mouth) messages. The first: “We are convinced that the defeat of Russia is indispensable for stability and security in Europe.” And the second: “We are determined to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to help Ukraine prevail.
His mention of ground troops came in response to a question about a remark by the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, a noted Ukraine-sceptic, who said a confidential preparatory document,that “sent shivers down your spine” included the possibility of some EU and Nato allies sending ground troops.
Macron’s response was that the subject had been been discussed “freely and directly”. He added: “There is no consensus today to send ground forces in an official, acknowledged and approved manner. But in a dynamic situation, nothing should be ruled out. We’ll do everything necessary so that Russia cannot win this war.”
His remarks implied that there were already western military personnel in Ukraine on undisclosed missions. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said as much when he rejected sending Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine because that would require the presence of German soldiers to help with target acquisition and programming. “What the British and French are doing with targeting and guidance cannot be done in Germany,” Scholz said.
It is an open secret in military circles that the US, the UK and France have had special forces active in Ukraine notably on intelligence gathering and training missions, as well as helping with cyber defence. Military advisers and civilian contractors are also present in small numbers to help maintain and support western-supplied weapons systems, and more will be necessary once Ukraine finally receives the long-promised F-16 fighter aircraft.
The idea of deploying western combat troops or aircraft on the battlefield remains a taboo since it would bring them into direct conflict with Russia, potentially triggering a third world war. The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov hastened to warn that in that case, war between Russia and Nato would be not just a possibility but an “inevitability”.
Western allies including the US, Germany the Netherlands and even Poland, a leading anti-Russia hawk, immediately chimed in to say they had no intention of sending ground troops to Ukraine, suggesting some irritation with Macron’s comment. Kyiv hastened to say it was asking for swifter arms and ammunition supplies, not troops.
The German vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, hinted at one explanation for Macron’s statement, when he retorted: “If I may offer a word of advice – supply more weapons.” Berlin and Paris, ostensibly each other’s closest partner, have been engaged in an increasingly vicious blame game over who is failing Ukraine.
Scholz has urged other European countries to follow Germany’s example, citing figures compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy that show Germany had provided military goods worth €17.7bn by mid-January of this year, second only to the US, while France had given just €640m. France disputes those numbers and claims its military aid in 2022-23 was worth €3.2bn, with up to another €3bn pledged this year.
Macron mocked the Germans without naming them when he said that “many of those who say ‘never, never’ today are the same people who said ‘never, never tanks, never, never aircraft, never, never long-range missiles’ two years ago. Let me recall that two years ago some around this table said ‘We’ll send sleeping bags and helmets.’” All European leaders should be modest enough to recognise that they had often been six to 12 months too late, he said.
It’s typical of Macron that when he changes position, he tends to go over the top in the opposite direction, partly in an effort to erase memories of his previous stance. On Ukraine, it was he who persisted in talking to Putin long after Moscow had launched its full-scale invasion, and who argued that Russia must not be humiliated even as its artillery pounded Ukrainian cities.
The French leader atoned in a speech in Bratislava last year, saying that western European leaders should have listened to their central European counterparts, who had long warned of Russia’s aggressive intentions. Now he has gone further and sought to position himself as Putin’s principal European opponent.
It may help his domestic political predicament – unpopular and without an absolute parliamentary majority – to paint his far-right and hard-left opponents, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon respectively, as Putin apologists in thrall to Russian propaganda. Le Pen, whose Rassemblement National party (then called the Front National) took a Russian bank loan in 2014 and who basked in a photo opportunity with Putin during her 2017 presidential campaign, has opposed oil and gas sanctions on Moscow and arms supplies. Mélenchon has accused Macron of irresponsibly leading France towards a war between nuclear powers.
Lagging far behind Le Pen’s National Rally in the polls ahead of the European elections in June, Macron may feel his centrist Renaissance party’s best hope is to wrap itself in the Ukrainian flag defending European values and paint its adversaries into a Russian corner.
But even an elder statesman such as the former foreign minister Hubert Védrine chided the president for a “meaningless” comment, rejected by his European partners, that he said would send a signal of weakness to Putin rather than strengthen European deterrence against Russia.
So was Macron wrong to raise the issue? Not necessarily. There are many possible roles that western forces could play in Ukraine short of combat: operating satellite ground terminals, clearing mines, training new Ukrainian recruits, repairing and maintaining weapons, intelligence and cybersecurity support, protecting armaments factories, backfilling for Ukrainian forces in medical services and catering to free up more soldiers for the front.
In a wider sense, Macron was right to raise the strategic question of how far the west is willing to go to prevent Russia winning. Let’s hope he stirs a real debate on ensuring that Ukraine wins.
Paul Taylor is a senior fellow of the Friends of Europe thinktank
