French President Emmanuel Macron receives European leaders this Monday, February 26, at a conference aimed at strengthening Western support for Ukraine, two years after the Russian invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to participate via video call.
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The meeting in Paris will be an opportunity for participants to “reaffirm their unity, as well as their determination to defeat the war of aggression waged by Russia in Ukraine,” the French Presidency said.
It also signals Macron's desire to present himself as a European champion of the Ukrainian cause, amid growing fears that American support could wane in the coming years.
“Battered and bruised, but still standing. Ukraine is fighting for itself, for its ideals, for our Europe. Our commitment to it will not waver,” Macron wrote in X to commemorate two years since the start of the conflict.
Deux ans de guerre. Frappée et meurtrie, more toujours debout. L'Ukraine se bat pour elle, pour ses idéaux de ella, pour notre Europe. Notre engagement à ses côtés de ella ne faiblira pas. pic.twitter.com/Hrzx0WtDqu
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 23, 2024
For Macron, the conference is also an opportunity to show European autonomy in security matters, something he has stressed even before the invasion.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda will be among the approximately 20 European heads of state and government present at the conference, which will be opened with a message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which will be broadcast via video.
Other states will be represented at ministerial level, with Foreign Secretary David Cameron traveling to Paris on behalf of the United Kingdom. The United States and Canada also sent delegates.
“Clear message”
According to the French Presidency, the meeting will “examine all means to support Ukraine effectively.”
Western officials acknowledge that Russia risks gaining the upper hand in the conflict in 2024 as Ukraine runs out of weapons and ammunition.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on Sunday that half of Western military aid promised to kyiv has been delivered late, lamenting that “commitment does not constitute delivery.”
Revealing the magnitude of Ukraine's human losses, Zelensky said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war with Russia. Figures that have been questioned by Russia and by media such as 'The New York Times', which claim that they could be much higher.
A French presidential official, who asked not to be named, said the meeting needed to contradict any “impression that things are falling apart” after Ukraine's setbacks on the battlefield.
“We want to send a clear message to Putin that he will not prevail in Ukraine,” the official said.
Although no new aid announcements are planned, participants will examine ways to “do things better and more decisively,” the official added.
A “completely different conflict”
There are growing doubts about the viability of long-term US support for Ukraine, as a new aid package struggles to find legislative approval and Donald Trump eyes a return to the presidency in year-end elections.
Zelensky said Sunday that his country's victory “depends” on Western support and that he was “confident” the United States would approve a critical military aid package.
“We are neither resigned nor defeatist,” the French official said, adding, “there will be no victory for Russia in Ukraine.”
Debra Cagan, a former U.S. diplomat and now a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, argued that if the West had provided Ukraine with weapons like F-16 fighter jets or German Taurus missiles, “we would be looking at a completely different conflict now.”
“And that's what indecision does, it causes more deaths, more destruction and more difficult decisions in the future,” he added.
The conference is expected to start at 4pm (GMT time) and a press conference by President Macron is expected at 8pm (GMT time).
(AFP)
This article was adapted from its original in English.
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