Russia has rejected European offers to deploy peacekeeping forces in Ukraine and said on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron was threatening it, claiming Moscow poses a serious threat to Europe.
In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he planned to hold a meeting next week of European army chiefs who are prepared to send troops to Ukraine after a peace deal with Russia.
He also added that France must be prepared for the possibility that the United States may no longer support it.
President Donald Trump has dramatically changed U.S. foreign policy strategy toward Ukraine and Russia, calling for a deal to end the conflict while criticizing Ukraine while discussing the possibility of restoring relations with Moscow.
Mr Macron said Russia was a “threat to France and Europe”, that the conflict in Ukraine was already a “global war” and that it would open a discussion about extending France's nuclear umbrella to allies in Europe.
The Kremlin responded by calling the speech highly confrontational and saying Mr Macron clearly wanted the conflict in Ukraine to continue, while President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister said Mr Macron's remarks amounted to a threat to Russia.
“This is certainly a threat” to Russia, Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
“Unlike his predecessors who also sought to fight Russia, such as Napoleon and Hitler, Mr Macron is not acting very gracefully, because at least he has said directly: 'We must conquer Russia, we must defeat Russia.'
Lavrov also rejected European ideas about sending NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine, saying Moscow would view such a deployment as a NATO presence on Ukrainian territory, which it would not allow.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia and the United States are the world's leading nuclear powers, each with more than 5,000 nuclear warheads, followed by China with about 500 warheads, France with 290, and the United Kingdom with 225 warheads.
Russian officials argue that the harsh rhetoric of Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European leaders in recent days is simply not backed by real military power, pointing to Russia's successes on the front line in Ukraine.
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Last year, Putin ordered an increase in the size of Russia's regular army by 180,000 troops, bringing it to 1.5 million active servicemen, making it the second-largest in the world after China's.
Putin has repeatedly dismissed as absurd Western claims that Russia could ever attack a NATO member state.
Ukraine and the West claim Putin is waging an imperialist conquest
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
