President Macron calls for allowing Ukraine to attack Russian territory.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on the West to allow Ukraine to use weapons to attack targets within Russian territory.
According to RIA Novosti, speaking at a press conference with the German Chancellor on May 28, which was streamed live on the Élysée Palace's X social network, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces should be allowed by the West to use weapons to attack targets in Russian territory.
"We must allow Ukraine to destroy military targets on Russian territory where shelling is taking place, but we must not allow Ukraine to suffer attacks on other military and civilian targets on its own territory," President Macron said.
Furthermore, according to the French leader, transferring long-range weapons capable of striking Russian military targets to Kyiv would not be an act of escalating the conflict.
On the same day, May 28, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the alliance's defense ministers would discuss the possibility of lifting restrictions on Kyiv's attacks with Western weapons on Russian territory, following a call from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The previous day, the NATO Secretary General stated that Ukraine "has the right to attack" military targets on Russian territory. Stoltenberg added that some allies had lifted restrictions on attacks, and that, in his opinion, it was time for all of them to lift other restrictions together.
Responding to these statements, on the Russian side, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that NATO was making flowery rhetoric, escalating the situation and falling into a military "psychosis." Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out that Stoltenberg had exceeded his authority. "The Secretary-General of the alliance has been surrounded by NATO members themselves," the Russian Foreign Minister said.
Recently, several Western countries have increasingly spoken about directly intervening in the conflict in Ukraine. French President Macron has stated this on several occasions. According to him, Paris does not rule out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine if Russia breaks through the front lines and Kyiv requests assistance.
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on May 26 that the Baltic states and Poland "warned" Germany that they could send troops to Ukraine if developments were unfavorable to Kyiv.