Russia calls French leader Macron’s refusal to rule out troops for Ukraine “very dangerous”

Russia’s government on Friday criticized French President Emmanuel Macron for again suggesting that his country would consider sending troops to Ukraine to help defend against The Russian invasion underwayif kyiv requested that level of aid.

In an interview with The Economist magazine published Thursday, Macron said his country would have to consider the request if it arose and if Russian forces managed to breach Ukraine’s defenses along the long front line in the country’s east.

“I don’t rule out anything, because we are faced with someone who doesn’t rule out anything,” he told The Economist, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “If the Russians penetrate the front lines, if there is a Ukrainian request – which is not the case today – we should legitimately raise the question” about sending forces, Macron told the magazine.

Russia calls French and British rhetoric “very dangerous”

“The statement is very important and very dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow on Friday, accusing Macron of repeatedly raising the prospect of “direct participation on the ground in the conflict around Ukraine.”

“This is a very dangerous trend,” Peskov said.

Since ordering the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin’s government has claimed it was in self-defense against the US-led NATO alliance by extending its area of ​​control to Russia’s western border. However, the violent reaction to the invasion among northern European nations has brought NATO territory closer to Russia than ever before.

Macron received criticism from Russia and his own NATO allies when he first raised the possibility of a French deployment to Ukraine earlier this year. The Biden administration, while always insisting that every inch of NATO territory will be defended, has ruled out any US combat deployment to Ukraine.

“If Russia wins in Ukraine, we will no longer have security in Europe. Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?” Macron said in the last interview.

Peskov also made comments called by Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who met Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenksyy this week, that justified kyiv’s attack on targets inside Russia as “dangerous” rhetoric and “escalation” by the West.

Visiting kyiv, Cameron said Ukraine “absolutely has the right to strike back at Russia” and that London did not tell Ukraine how its forces should use weapons supplied by Britain. Ukraine has carried out a series of attacks, mostly targeting energy infrastructure, inside Russia in recent months.

Peskov said the latest comments from Macron and Cameron “potentially present a danger for European security, for the entire European security architecture,” and noted what he called “a dangerous trend towards escalation in official statements. This is generating our worry”.

What is happening on the Ukrainian front?

The situation on the front lines in eastern Ukraine is worsening, but local defenders are so far holding firm against a concerted push by larger and better-equipped Russian forces, a senior Ukrainian military official said on Thursday.

Nazar Voloshyn, spokesman for the Ukrainian strategic command in the east of the country, said Russia has concentrated troops in the Donetsk region in an effort to break through the Ukrainian defensive line.

“The enemy is actively attacking along the entire front line and in several directions has achieved certain tactical advances,” he said on national television. “The situation is changing dynamically.”

Russia has put Ukraine on the defensive on the battlefield as kyiv grapples with troop and ammunition shortages. Ukrainian forces are now racing to build more defensive fortifications in locations along the roughly 600-mile front line. That line extends from Ukraine’s northern to southern borders, and much of the industrial heartland of the country’s eastern Donbas is now in Russian hands.

Ukraine’s difficulties have deepened for months as the military waits for vital new military aid from the United States. Support was held back by politics in Washington for six months, but a massive aid package was finally approved. approved by legislation and signed by President Biden at the end of last month. However, it is unclear when the much-needed American equipment provided by that aid package will begin reaching Ukraine’s frontline troops.

ukrainian soldiers retired from Avdiivka, a city in the Donetsk region, in February under a withering Russian bombardment that had sapped its fighting strength and morale. Since then, Kremlin forces have used their military power to take village after village in the area, beating them into submission, while attempting to capture the parts of Donetsk they do not yet occupy.

Speaking on Friday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces were storming “enemy strongholds along the entire line of combat contact.”

“The units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to hold on to individual lines, but under our attack, they are forced to abandon their positions and retreat,” Shoigu stated, claiming that his troops had seized an additional 211 square miles of territory From the beginning. of the year alone.

Cities in Russia’s sights, including the recent Chasiv Yar target in eastern Ukraine, are pulverized by Moscow’s missiles, drones and gliding bombs. CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata was at Chasiv Yar in late February when explosions were going off non-stop and he found a city ​​devastated by artillery fire and exhausted Ukrainian troops desperate for help from their international partners.

The provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk together form the Donbas, a sprawling industrial region bordering Russia that Putin identified as a hotspot since the start of the war and where Moscow-backed separatists have fought since 2014.

Missile and drone attacks continue, on both sides

Long range blows have been a constant and devastating feature of Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. kyiv officials have asked for more air defense systems from Ukraine’s Western partners, but they have been slow to arrive.

President Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Russia had launched more than 300 missiles of various types, almost 300 Shahed drones and more than 3,200 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine in April alone.

Odessa, a key export hub for millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain exported across the Black Sea, has been repeatedly attacked by Russia.

Ukraine has deployed increasingly sophisticated long-range drones strike backMeanwhile, aiming at targets on Russian soil, especially energy infrastructure that sustains the Russian economy and the war effort.

Governors of three Russian regions reported that Ukrainian drone strikes damaged energy facilities overnight. The governor of the Oryol region. Andrei Klychkov said energy infrastructure was affected in two communities. The governors of Smolensk and Kursk reported that one facility was damaged in each region.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian drones were shot down over the Bryansk, Krasnodar, Rostov and Belgorod regions. Most were intercepted in Bryansk, where five were shot down, he said.