MOSCOW - Russia on Sunday scolded Mr Emmanuel Macron over remarks about wanting to see Russia defeated, saying Moscow still remembered the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and accusing the French President of duplicitous diplomacy with the Kremlin.
Mr Macron told paper Le Journal du Dimanche that France wanted Russia to be defeated in Ukraine but had never wanted to “crush” it.
“About ‘Never’: France did not begin with Macron, and the remains of Napoleon, revered at the state level, rest in the centre of Paris. France – and Russia – should understand,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said.
“In general, Macron is priceless,” she said, adding that his remarks showed the West had engaged in discussions about regime change in Russia while Mr Macron had repeatedly sought meetings with the Russian leadership.
Mr Macron has drawn criticism from some North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies for delivering mixed messages regarding his policy on the war between Ukraine and Russia, with some considering Paris a weak link in the Western alliance.
Last Friday, he urged allies to step up military support for Ukraine, but also said he did not believe in regime change and that there would have to be negotiations at some point.
“Let’s be clear, I don’t believe for one second in regime change, and when I hear a lot of people calling for regime change, I ask them, ‘For which change? Who’s next? Who is your leader?‘“
Clarifying those comments, Mr Macron said in the paper that he did not believe a democratic solution from within civil society would emerge in Russia after years of a hardening of Moscow’s position and conflict. He added that he saw no alternative to President Vladimir Putin, who had to be brought back to the negotiating table.
“All the options other than Vladimir Putin in the current system seem worse to me,” Mr Macron said.
On Sunday, France said it will begin delivering the armoured vehicles it had promised Ukraine by next weekend.
The vehicles, of the AMX-10 type and sometimes described as “light tanks”, are used for armed reconnaissance and attacks on enemy tanks. They also offer protection against light infantry fire.
The first vehicles will be sent to Ukraine “by the end of next week”, defence minister Sebastien Lecornu told Le Parisien newspaper’s Sunday edition.
He declined to specify the number of vehicles in the first batch, saying he did not want to give Russia any “strategic information”.
Training of Ukrainian crews on the AMX-10 was now “nearly complete”, Mr Lecornu said.
Overall training of the Ukrainian military was “intensifying”, he added, both in France and Poland, a fellow Nato member.
Starting in March, 600 Ukrainian troops would undergo training every month, he said.
Asked about possible fighter aircraft deliveries to Ukraine – an urgent request by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – Mr Lecornu said the question was “not taboo”. But he said such military aid posed complex “logistical and practical questions”. REUTERS, AFP
