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Europe will lose all credibility if Russia wins in Ukraine, warns French president Macron (www.telegraph.co.uk)
submitted 7 months ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/europe@feddit.de
124 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/10013170

The war in Ukraine is “existential for our Europe and for France”, Mr Macron said in the interview on France 2 and TF1.

“Do you think that the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Estonians, the Romanians and the Bulgarians could remain at peace for a second [in the event of a Russian victory in Ukraine]?” he asked. “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility would be reduced to zero.”

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[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 86 points 7 months ago (2 children)

U.S. conservatives are champing at the bit to see Europe fall to Russia. Action needs to happen now, or the U.S. could have a conservative government that backs Putin. That would be the end of Europe.

We need to join Europe right now in a full-scale defense of Ukraine. Otherwise we are allowing Putin to take Europe simply by threat of nuclear action. We need to strike first, disarm the dictator and repel the Russian invasion. And we need to do it now. The clock is ticking.

[–] MrMakabar@feddit.de 28 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We need to destroy Russias ability to threaten the EU and remove Putin and any other similar leader from power in Russia. That should be the goal of the EU and not to go into a full scale war with Russia. Seriously Putin is not winning that war. The Russian civilian economy is shrinking fast, Russias war reserves are depleting, oil income is falling, soldiers are being lost on a massive scale with a demogrophics, which does not allow for that, and Russias weapons reserves from Soviet times are falling. Russia has two or three years of full scale war in it. The only thing we need to do is to keep Ukraine in the fight, while destroying as much of Russia as possible.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The one thing Russia has able to successfully ramp up production on is basic artillery shells. Analysts are putting their production numbers at something like 3x what Europe is putting out. It’s starting to become a problem.

And that little spineless shitfuck Johnson is doing precisely what Putin wants in this scenario. There is a direct causal relationship between Johnson + the GOP refusing to give anything to Ukraine for months and Ukraine’s recent strategic difficulties. I sincerely hope Johnson is able to experience the tender mercies of Russian captivity someday.

[–] MrMakabar@feddit.de 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nope, Russia is firing three times as many shells as Europe produces in 155mm. However that includes North Korean shells and smaller artillery calibers. The EU also produces some 152mm and 120mm. Even more importantly the shells are much more accurate.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I’m not sure you understood the gist of my comment. I know the calibers are different, and that the shells the Russians are cranking out are very basic. They’re going for the Soviet approach (just make TONS of shitty-to-mediocre weapons).

[–] sailingbythelee@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Exactly right. Quantity has a quality of its own. Russia tried a US-style rapid combined arms shock-and-awe invasion of Ukraine and fucked it up, so they've reverted to the old school Soviet strategy: throw huge masses of men and materiel into the fight, be relentless and willing to endure huge losses.

The interesting thing is that this is the strategy NATO expected throughout the Cold War, so we should be prepared for it. Granted, NATO was preparing for a Soviet invasion through the Fulda Gap and then across the North German plain, but still, the strategy is the same. NATO always intended to use superior technology and tactics to trade space for time while we mobilized to meet the massed Soviet forces.

The fact that we have allowed Russia to continue this all-out war for two years and STILL haven't adequately mobilized is pretty bad. Macron is right: Europe, particularly western Europe, has lost a hell of a lot of credibility.

France and the UK have lost the most credibility, I think. They were the two main victorious European powers after WW2, as well as being large, rich countries, permanent Security Council members, and nuclear powers in their own right. Germany gets a pass because they are not supposed to have a large military, for obvious historical reasons.

Europe has been too heavily relying on the US to save the day, despite obvious signs that the US is suffering from war weariness, corruption, and very serious internal social divisions.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 19 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

NATO without the US can easily easily easily take on Russia. Russia couldn't even invade one of the poorest countries in Europe. UK and France have nuclear weapons. And haven't we already seen what preemptive wars end up as? (And that was when they had no nukes.) Defensive wars suck in a lot of ways, but that's what we're left with.

[–] Hubi@feddit.de 86 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Credibility is not the only thing Europe is bound to lose if Russia is victorious.

[–] Mango@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Came here to say this. Think Russia will stop because they got the thing they wanted? Nah. They're gonna get high on the win and world war 3 will kill us all.

[–] FatLegTed@piefed.social 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Exactly, they want it all. We will never be safe until Putin and his like are out of the picture.

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[–] ezchili@iusearchlinux.fyi 41 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Second moment in recent history when the french end up being the tellers of uncomfortable truths

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 20 points 7 months ago

Don't forget about Charles de Gaulle warning Kennedy against a war in Vietnam

You will find that intervention in this area will be an endless entanglement.

[–] DrM@feddit.de 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they should start supporting Ukraine a bit more then, so far they are lacking in comparison to the rest of europe

[–] Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, sadly I see Macron's statement about french troops in Ukraine as nothing more than hot air. The last I heard, France was blocking buying artillery shells from non-EU sources, even though those shells could be shipped right now.

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[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 21 points 7 months ago (4 children)

We should have admitted Ukraine into NATO a long time ago.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Reminder that all that bullshit about "territorial disputes" means nothing if the signatories agree to ignore it, or if they decide to live in the real world and acknowledge that an attack on a prospective member is still an attack on the alliance.

That said...

They really did have quite the corruption problem.

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[–] 0x815@feddit.de 21 points 7 months ago

Citing the same interview, the U.S. magazine Newsweek published an article with Macron saying that Ukraine must reclaim Crimea to achieve real peace

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago (35 children)

We need to start defining what a win and what a loss is. I feel that this could vary on some parts

[–] crispy_kilt@feddit.de 45 points 7 months ago

It's very simple. Make the occupiers fuck off behind Ukraine's internationally recognised borders.

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[–] Chup@feddit.de 11 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Are there elections coming in France?

We are hearing big words from Macron over and over in the last few weeks to support Ukraine - yet France is far behind when in comes to supporting Ukraine financially or with military equipment. And please don't bring that Reddit meme 'France is doing everything secretly and nobody knows about it'. Democratic financing in billions of Euros is public and not a high toilet paper bill like in Hollywood movies from the 80s. There is of course a lot of proportionate support by France within the EU-assistance, as France is a big economy and paying into the EU budget. It's a similar situation with Italy, as they are another big economy within the EU. Both EU 'power houses' are far behind when it comes to direct support for Ukraine.

Macron has been telling us just last week, that the local EU arms industry needs more orders to enable low and competitive prices. He also told us support for Ukraine should only receive subsidies for EU-made products. And last week we saw statistics that the arm industry/exports from the USA and France profited the most from the Russian invasion in Ukraine, as everyone is getting their military up to date and ordering a lot. So everything plays in his hands and France is reaping in big profits and getting support for its huge arms industry. Yet, the country is far behind in supporting Ukraine and Macron keeps calling other countries to support Ukraine more - or here that 'Europe will lose all credibility'.

What is going on here? Elections?

[–] ezchili@iusearchlinux.fyi 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

You could've googled that they will be in 2027 instead of writing all that :|

Current government is just stingy. They pushed the pension reform remember? Far right (which is pro-russian) has 30+% of the voters, they don't have the balls to take the fallout once they pay for a news-worthy weapon package after pushing for cost-cuttings in every department

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[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 7 points 7 months ago (4 children)

European elections are ongoing, and that's definitely a move to tell to pro-European to not vote for "certain parties".

You're absolutely right that if we look at the material given, for once Germany is leading the "European defence". And that realistically, moving "troops" to Ukraine will impact other front where french troops are fighting. So I am not sure which part of it is just word and whether it'll change much the big picture. That said, I can see how even non combat soldier could be a drastic change. If you send military mechanics with the tanks you let Ukraine having more combat troops and avoid long retraining of support staff.

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