Western powers must back Ukraine’s expected counteroffensive with additional military aid in a bid to induce Russia to negotiate before the end of the year, according to French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Whatever happens [during the counteroffensive] — I do believe that they will deliver — it will not create, de facto, an acceptance from the Russians to negotiate,” Macron told the GLOBSEC 2023 Bratislava Forum. “What we need in parallel is to make this counter-offensive credible because, first, we have to be to be very clear as Europeans that our support will stay strong and will last.”
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Part of that support, Macron suggested, should come in the form of “clear and tangible security guarantees” from NATO in July, when the leaders of the trans-Atlantic alliance meet in Vilnius. The French leader cautioned against allowing the war to settle into “a sort of a ceasefire or a frozen conflict, [because] time will be on the Russian side,” but he also acknowledged the potential need to “calibrate” international aid to Ukraine if the war continues into the war.
“We have to provide in the coming months; perhaps it will not be sufficient and the war will last,” Macron said. “I think, at that time, we will have to reassess the situation to see how to calibrate our support at that time. But let’s be clear: If we decrease our support — if, de facto, we accept a sort of a ceasefire or a frozen conflict — time will be on the Russian side, for sure. We have to be lucid about that.”
Macron maintained that the war is entering “a very important moment” as Ukrainian officials prepare for their first major counter-offensive of 2023. He suggested that this campaign, in combination with Western support, might set the table for a negotiation — an opportunity that may need to trump Ukrainian desires to pursue war crimes charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin, as he told a senior Ukrainian lawmaker, Maria Mezentsev, during a Q&A session.
“The question is, if in few months to come, we have a window for a negotiation with the existing Russian political power, the question will be an arbitrage between the trial or negotiation, I will be very frank with you,” Macron said. “And you will have to negotiate with the leaders you have. ... But I think your priority is to win this war by building a sustainable peace ... because otherwise, you can put yourself in an impossible situation where you say, 'I want you to go to jail. But you're the only one I can negotiate with.’”
Macron also acknowledged the “risk” that the war in Ukraine could put pressure on wider Western priorities, such as the competition for influence across the so-called Global South.
“Many of these developing countries think that they are on the weaker side because they don't get our assistance because we are helping Ukraine,” Macron said. "So we have this risk. There is also a risk that these countries turn to a different power and we will have a new global order. ... We shouldn’t forget about developing countries in the south part of the world so that they do not change sides.”
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Macron’s hinted at unease about the constraints on Western support for Ukraine beyond this summer in the same breath as he asserted the need to avoid a frozen conflict that allows Putin to wear down Ukraine.
“Given the fact that this war is a matter of principle for the global order as well, and, I think, for the sustainability of the European security and safety, we should not accept such a scenario,” he said. “And our reassessment during autumn and winter should be made at the light of what will happen in the coming months, but as well at the light of our strategic scenario — the one I tried to describe.”