President of France Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted to “beat” her. Moscow against Ukrainebut warning those who “want first of all to crush Russiathat this will never be the position of his country.

“I want the defeat of Russia in Ukraine and I want Ukraine to be able to defend itself, but I am convinced that in the end this will not be done by military means,” Macron said in an interview with French media (Journal du Dimanche, Figaro, France Inter).

“I don’t think, like some people, that we should completely destroy Russia, attack her on her territory. These observers want above all to crush Russia. This was not and never will be the position of France,” he added.

The “observers” appear to the French president as those who, mainly in Eastern Europe, strongly criticized his statement in May 2022 that Russia should be “humiliated”.

In the same interview he gave Friday night on the plane that took him to Munich, Macron confirmed his preference for a negotiated solution.

“Today, Ukraine needs to launch a military offensive that will split the Russian front and provoke a return to negotiations,” he said.

He also argued that “neither of the two sides can prevail (…) neither Ukraine nor Russia, because the results of the mobilization are not as important as it predicted, and it (including Russia) has limited capabilities.”

He emphasized that “all other options except Vladimir Putin in the current system” seemed to him “worse” than the Russian president, referring to the head of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev and the founder of the Wagner mercenary organization, Evgeny Prigozhin.

“Do we really believe that after years of brutality and in the midst of a war, Russian civil society will come to a democratic solution? I sincerely hope so, but I don’t believe,” he concluded.

AFP