Moscow (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Russian officials and lawmakers criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for stating that Russia threatened Europe, and warned that such talk could push the West towards the abyss of a new world war.
As reported, the advancement of Russian forces in Ukraine in 2024 and U.S. President Donald Trump’s revision of U.S. policy towards Ukraine and Russia and call for an agreement to end the war have led to worries among European leaders that US is turning its back on Europe.
A day earlier, Macron in an address to the nation said that Russia was
“a threat for France and Europe”,
That the Kyiv war was already a “global conflict” and that he would unlock a debate about expanding the French nuclear umbrella to partners in Europe.
How did Russian officials respond to Macron’s Remarks?
In a reaction, Konstantin Kosachev, a senior Russian senator, said,
“Such an erroneous analysis leads to fatal errors.”
He further said Macron had miscalculated Russia’s reaction to the enlargement and attack of the U.S.-led military alliance towards Russia.
“Macron maniacally imposes on his citizens, allies and the entire world a completely false concept of what is happening – ‘the Russians are coming!’ Such false conclusions and false suggestions lead to the abyss.”
Moreover, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, compared French President to a mystical figure named “Ole Lukøje” from Hans Christian Andersen who tells stories to sleeping children.
“Every day he makes some kind of completely out-of-touch statements that contradict previous ones. He’s a storyteller,”
State news agency RIA quoted Zakharova as stating.
Furthermore, Ex-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, said “Micron” posed no threat at all.
How does Putin dismiss NATO’s concerns about Russian expansion?
Similarly, Russian officials express the harsh rhetoric from Macron, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other European states over recent days is merely not supported by hard military power and highlights Russia’s advance on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year decided to increase the regular size of the Russian army to be raised by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million engaged servicemen. Putin has repeatedly disregarded as nonsense Western insistence that Russia could one day strike a NATO member, which under the NATO charter would be regarded as an attack on all 32 members of the alliance.
Putin describes the fighting as part of a historic struggle with the West, which he states humiliated Russia, after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, by broadening NATO and encroaching on what he believes Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Kyiv.
