French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday pledged to keep up France's humanitarian, economic and military support to Ukraine and to bolster European unity as a way to pile pressure on Russia and prevent it from winning it war in that country.
“We cannot let Russia militarily win the war,” Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee presidential palace.
He set the goal of enabling Ukraine to either win militarily or be put in a strong position to achieve “a negotiated peace.”
“We must get prepared for a long war,” Macron said, adding that this would involve tensions escalating over Ukraine's nuclear plants.
Macron said France strongly supported the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency that arrived on Thursday to the Zaporizhzhia plant to assess its safety. The French president suggested he would call his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after the IAEA mission concludes.
Macron vowed to “keep talking” to Russia despite criticism from some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, which defend a hardline stance against Moscow.
