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.
President Macron, initially one of the leading advocates for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow, has increasingly become one of the most hawkish voices in the European Union. Over the past week alone, the French leader has suggested arming the EU with nuclear weapons in light of the supposed threat from Russia and doubled down on his suggestion of sending NATO troops into the war if Russia breaks through Ukraine’s front line and Kyiv requests the aid of foreign soldiers.
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.”
Meanwhile, in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said: “I don’t judge a president of a friendly country like France, but I don’t understand the purpose and usefulness of these declarations, which objectively raise tensions.”
“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.”
In an interview over the weekend with La Tribune, Macron defended his recent rhetoric as an attempt at “strategic ambiguity”.
Russia decided unilaterally in February 2022 to attack a sovereign state, Ukraine, and therefore not to respect international law, the Charter of the United Nations… It has decided to resolutely become a destabilising power which gives no strategic limits to its action. And President Putin has constantly brandished the nuclear threat.
“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.
“Ukraine has that right. Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” the former British prime minister told Reuters on Thursday.
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”.