The Sovfed called Macron's active support of Ukraine a PR move

French President Emmanuel Macron supports Ukraine for the sake of personal PR, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer thus continues his party's policy of supporting the US Democratic Party. The deputy chairman of the Federation Council's committee on international affairs, Andriy Klimov, told Izvestia on 20 February.

After the negotiations between Russia and the United States, as well as numerous speeches of American President Donald Trump criticizing Ukraine, Starmer and Macron began to speak out more actively in support of Kiev. In addition, the media reported that London and Paris were discussing sending peacekeeping forces to Ukraine.

"This is Macron's PR, his personal PR, to show his own importance. <...> And the current UK government, to put it mildly, in opposition to Trump turned out to be. They didn't want Trump to win the election, they were brazenly campaigning for [former U.S. President Joe] Biden and his team, in violation of U.S. law. They are taking advantage of this crisis to continue their showdown with Trump by the hands of the same Ukrainians," Klimov said.

He recalled that sending a NATO military contingent to Ukraine requires the consent of both sides of the conflict, as well as a favorable decision of the UN Security Council, where Russia vetoed the relevant resolution.

"If some military contingent appears there (in Ukraine. - Ed.), this contingent can under certain circumstances become a legitimate target of our armed forces," Klimov emphasized.

The senator noted that this aspect is well understood by the new US administration. On 12 February, United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that if foreign troops were sent to Ukraine, they would not be covered by Article 5 of the NATO charter on security guarantees. In addition, he emphasized that Washington was under no circumstances going to send its contingent to Ukraine, Klimov recalled.

Europe at the "children's table" and talk of sending troops to Ukraine. What the media say

On February 19, Macron said that he was ready to hold talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Ruslan Andreev, a political consultant and expert at the Polylog Group, told Izvestiya that the French president was trying to become part of the process of settling the Ukrainian crisis with his statements.

On 17 February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the participation of the EU countries in the negotiations on Ukraine seemed useless in the light of the current situation, as the association had repeatedly demonstrated that it had no intention to change its position on the conflict.