Macron’s Idea on NATO troops in Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’

The past few days have seen Western media discuss "open display of discord" between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

After Macron recently proclaimed that he refuses to rule out sending EU troops to Ukraine, Scholz rejected the idea by emphasizing that "there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there" by European states or NATO members.

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"There has long been a certain antagonism" between Macron and Scholz, "and the issue of aid to Ukraine has only exacerbated the existing contradictions," Dr. Gregor Spitzen, German political analyst and independent journalist, said in an interview with Sputnik.

"France's ill-considered initiative to send NATO ground troops to Ukraine made Macron look very foolish. The initiative was not even supported by NATO's main anti-Russian hawks - the UK and Poland. The idea was also viewed negatively in the US," Spitzen clarified.

He also noted that while "passionate volunteers from the French Foreign Legion are already fighting and dying in Ukraine […], most soldiers in European armies are not eager to take part in modern warfare, where the risk of dying in a rocket attack without even seeing the enemy is high."

Dwelling on the repercussions from Macron’s remarks, Spitzen suggested that "We are likely to see European and American arms deliveries to Ukraine for some time to come." At the end of the day, however, "the West, seeing that the war is lost, will increasingly tempt Ukraine to make a separate peace," the analyst predicted.

Spitzen was echoed by Gilbert Doctorow, an international relations and Russian affairs analyst, who said that he thinks "the Germans were incensed at the cheekiness of Macron to publish a new initiative which can easily lead to [an] escalation of the war and to Germany being targeted by Russian missiles."

When asked whether European countries will avoid further confrontation with Russia after Macron's statement, Doctorow argued they “will likely continue it but in less risky places”, and that if Donald Trump comes to power in the US, they “will have to come to terms with Moscow over a new security architecture for the Continent.”

The comments come after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in his state of the nation address that NATO risks a nuclear conflict if it sends troops to support the Kiev regime.

"There’s been talk of sending NATO military forces to Ukraine. We remember the fate of those who sent their contingents to our country before and this time the consequences for the potential interventionists will be far more tragic," Putin said.

He urged the US and Europe to acknowledge the fact that Russia possesses weapons capable of targeting their territories and that all this plainly poses the risk of a conflict involving nuclear weapons, and therefore "the destruction of civilization".

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Putin then proceeded to mention Russia's new strategic weapons that he said are being put into service with the armed forces, and they include the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Macron’s Idea to Send NATO Troops to Ukraine ‘Made Him Look Very Foolish’