Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, conferences and summit meetings have multiplied. Very often, however, the results obtained fell short of the needs expressed by Ukraine to be able to contain an unfavorably evolving Russian threat.
The conference held this January 26 in Paris, in the presence of 27 countries and 21 heads of state, marks, this time, a profound paradigm shift on the part of Westerners, and especially Europeans. For the first time, Europeans have made the defeat of Russia a strategic, and even existential, objective for the security of the old continent.
And if media and political attention is today focused on a statement from the French president, who no longer excludes the sending of European soldiers to Ukraine, which can take on many aspects, it is, above all, this radical change in posture taken by European leaders, which constitutes the subject which deserves a detailed analysis.
In this section:
The rapid deterioration of the balance of power in Ukraine and the international situation threatens Europe
In this area, the press conferences given by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, which hosted the summit in Paris, provide an objective and motivated vision of the reasons which led Europeans to such a change, and of the nature of these upheavals which are coming.
As the Head of State indicated, several concomitant factors, but linked by powerful links of interaction, have come, in recent months, to significantly degrade the prospects in Ukraine, as well as concerning the future of the security of the old continent. .
"Russia continues the war, reiterates its objectives of territorial conquest, and has adopted a more aggressive stance, in Ukraine, and against all of us."
The first of them, the unfavorable evolution of the balance of power in Ukraine, however, is not, strictly speaking, a recent revelation. Indeed, this development is the consequence of the insufficient capabilities of the European defense industry, which is nothing new; the blocking, by the American Republican Party, of Washington's aid to Kyiv, which had been predictable for several months; and the rise of the Russian defense industry, what was identified from January 2023.
As we mentioned from that moment, in the absence of a rapid response from Europeans, to develop industrial capacities mirroring those deployed in Russia, the balance of power in Ukraine could only evolve in an unfavorable manner.
The second factor, linked to positions expressed by Donald Trump concerning American support for Ukraine, as for NATO, has had the effect of an electric shock in Europe in recent weeks. However, here too, the positions of the former American president, like his control over the Republican Party, were known, and therefore could be anticipated, for a long time.
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