LOS ANGELES.–French President Emmanuel Macron, 47, has now taken the European Union’s [EU] lead on confronting 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Macron spoke to the French people March 25 telling them that Russia has become a pressing danger to European security. Two weeks before at the Munich Security Conference, 47-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymer Zelensky told EU leaders that 78-year-old President Donald Trump was no longer interested in European security, something Trump never said or hinted. Trump said he’d like to see the Ukraine War end with a peaceful settlement because it destabilizes European and world peace. But Trump never said he abandoned European Security, only that he would not outright guarantee Ukraine’s security in any new peace plan. Trump want’s Ukraine’s EU partners to carry the burden of security.
Trump, during his first term in office, asked all NATO members to pony up at least 3% of its GDP for NATO defense, saying he would not defend countries that were delinquent on their dues. Somehow Trump’s past concerns morphed into Trump has abandoned European Security calling for the EU to develop its own army, independent of NATO. Macron has bought, lock, stock and barrel, all of Zelensky’s claptrap about Putin seeking to take over more European countries, something that lacks any facts. Putin has said from the beginning of the Ukraine War Feb. 24, 2022 that he wanted the U.S. to stop arming Ukraine to the teeth on the Russian border. Putin asked 82-year-old former President Joe Biden to discus new security arrangements for months before the invasion. Biden ignored Putin’s requests for dialogue and continued sending unlimited lethal weapons to Ukraine.
Biden called the invasion “unprovoked and unjustified,” but if you’re in the Kremlin, all they could see was the U.S. funding the Ukrainian war machine to eventually attack the Russian Federation. So, by the time Putin rolled his army into Ukraine, he was convinced that Biden wouldn’t stop unless he took action. Putin gave Zelensky an out in March 2022, asking Zelensky to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and accept independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine and EU powers claim that Putin reneged the 2014 Minsk 1 and 2015 Minsk II protocols but Putin never anticipated that Biden would continue arming Ukraine against all Kremlin objections. “I know President Putin well. If he’s reacting like that, it’s because he knows what I said is true,” Macron told an EU summit in Brussels. Macron agrees that Putin now threatens the EU.
Macron has been in a media exchange with Putin over what happened in 1812 when Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia: He lost. Well, that was then, this is now, when Macron misconstrues the battle in Ukraine as one against the EU. Putin never recognized Ukraine as part of Europe, that was part of Biden’s propaganda for funding proxy war in Ukraine with the Kremlin. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union since 1917 and part of the Russian Empire since 1717. So, the idea that Ukraine was always part of Europe was preposterous. Zelensky wants to call Ukraine a European democracy but that’s only because it wants U.S. military and civilian aid, not because it’s factual. “He’s making a historical error: Napoleon waged conquests. The only imperialistic power I see in Europe right now is Russia,” Macron said, insisting the Ukraine was part of Europe.
Macron has talked himself in the same propaganda delivered by Biden and Zelensky to justify the war with the Kremlin. Putin responded to a special circumstance of Biden arming Ukraine to the teeth against Kremlin objections. How does fit into the Minsk 1 and Minsk II protocols that called for a ceasefire and end to hostilities in Donbas. No one in the U.S. or EU acknowledges the Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup that toppled the Kremlin backed Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych. That coup was specifically timed while Putin was stuck in Sochi hosting the Winter Games. Once the games ended, Putin quickly annexed the Crimean Penninsula to protect his military assets in Crimea. Why does the U.S. and EU refuse to acknowledge how we got to his point in Ukraine? Macron charges that Putin has ambitions to takeover EU countries.
Macron is on the defense defending his unfounded accusations about the Kremlin seeking to expand its territory into Europe. Macron can’t possibly believe that Ukraine as part of Europe up until the present government decided it wanted to be part of Europe, largely for protection from Russia. Russia expects Ukraine to show enough deference toward the Kremlin to not accept unlimited arms from the U.S. and NATO with the purpose of waging war against Russia. Macron now calls for other EU countries to share the French nuclear umbrella, something so provocative it could trigger a nuclear war in Europe. Macron has give Trump fits knowing that he’s trying to end the conflict in Europe. But with threats like Macron’s, why would Putin ever want to stop the war in Ukraine. Now he sees it as a war against warmongers like Macron in the EU.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
