Citing comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who stated last month that sending French troops to Ukraine “could not be ruled out,” his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that “the situation is now much better than during these past three months.”
As long as Ukraine holds, the French army can stay on French territory.
According to Zelensky, his country does not need foreign troops but welcomes instructors and technical personnel from countries that provide Kyiv with military aid. The president also claimed after a trip to the Kupiansk area that Russian troops had concentrated maximum reserves and were taking advantage of delays in Western aid to Ukraine.
More than two years after the war broke out, Kyiv had been facing mounting pressure on the front lines in recent months, losing ground to Moscow amid delays from its biggest ally Washington.
They are taking advantage of the delays in aid to Ukraine and these are very tangible things: the shortage of artillery, the need for front-line air defence and the greater range of our weapons.
He also recalled his country’s dismissal of Pope Francis’s offer to have the “courage of the white flag” and come to the negotiating table. On Monday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry summoned Vatican envoy Visvaldas Kulbodas to tell him that Kyiv was “disappointed with the words of the Pontiff.”
