Senior Italian government officials admonished French President Emmanuel Macron over his “dangerous” and “desperate” rhetoric on the war in Ukraine such as suggesting sending NATO troops into the war.
Macron’s comments have drawn criticism from fellow NATO ally and EU member state Italy, which has flatly ruled out sending Italian troops into the conflict.
The harshest rebuke came from Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the populist League party, Matteo Salvini, who wrote on social media: “Sending Italian soldiers to fight outside the EU borders? Follow the obsessions of some dangerous and desperate European leader like Macron? No thanks, never in the name of the League.”
“Our position does not change: we have always said that Ukraine needed to be helped in every possible way, and we are doing so, but we have also always excluded direct intervention by our military in the conflict,”
“We will continue to provide aid, as we have done so far, for as long as it is useful and as long as we are able to do so.”
Macron Suggests Arming EU with Nuclear Weapons for ‘Credible’ Defencehttps://t.co/0XT5NvIJuW
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 28, 2024
In an interview over the weekend with La Tribune, Macron defended his recent rhetoric as an attempt at “strategic ambiguity”.
“Faced with such an adversary, what weakness to draw a priori limits, what weakness! On the contrary, we must remove all visibility from it, because that is what creates the capacity to deter.
“The security of Europeans is at stake in Ukraine because it is 1,500 kilometres from our borders. If Russia wins, the next second, there is no longer any security possible in Romania, in Poland, in Lithuania and not in our country either. The capability and range of Russian ballistic missiles exposes us all.”
“Russian excitement shows that we are right not to close any doors. Otherwise, it means that we agree to renounce an international order based on law and therefore peace and security,” he concluded.
Macron is not alone in ratcheting up the stakes in Ukraine, with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron saying that Kyiv has the right to use British-supplied missiles and other weapons within the Russian mainland.
Cameron, speaking from Ukraine, also said that the UK would supply Ukraine with three billion pounds ($3.74 billion) in military aid every year for “as long as it takes”.
WWIII Watch: Macron Floats Troops in Ukraine for First Time, Moscow Warns of ‘Inevitable’ War with NATOhttps://t.co/NjQbqHsN1Q
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 27, 2024
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