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French President Emmanuel Macron will invite European leaders on Monday to a conference aimed at boosting Western support for Ukraine, two years after Russia’s invasion.
The French president’s office said the meeting in Paris would be an opportunity for participants to “reaffirm their solidarity as well as their determination to defeat Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.”
It also signals Macron’s eagerness to present himself as a European champion of Ukraine’s cause amid growing concerns that US support will wane in the coming years.
Commemorating the second anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war, President Macron said: “Battered and scarred, but still standing. Ukraine is fighting for itself, for its ideals and for our Europe. Ukraine Our resolve on this side remains unwavering,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). .
For Macron, the conference is also an opportunity to demonstrate European autonomy on security issues, which he had called for even before the invasion.
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The conference will also be attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda, as well as about 20 European heads of state and government, who will open with a video address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Other states will also be represented at ministerial level, with Foreign Secretary David Cameron traveling to Paris on behalf of the UK. The United States and Canada will also be represented.
The meeting will “consider all measures to effectively support Ukraine,” the French president’s office said.
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Western officials acknowledge that as Ukraine runs out of arms and ammunition, there is a risk that Russia will gain the upper hand in a 2024 conflict.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on Sunday that half of the Western military aid promised to Kiev has been delivered late, lamenting that “promises are not delivered.”
President Zelenskiy revealed the scale of Ukraine’s human losses, saying that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war with Russia.
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A French presidential official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the talks needed to counteract “the impression that things are falling apart” following setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“We want to send a clear message to President Putin that we will not win in Ukraine,” the official said.
Even if no new aid announcements are planned, participants will consider ways to “do things better and more decisively,” the official added.
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Long-term U.S. aid to Ukraine remains a possibility as new aid packages struggle to win Congressional approval and Donald Trump looks to return to office later this year. Questions about sexuality are on the rise.
President Zelenskiy said on Sunday that his country’s victory “depends” on Western support and said he was “confident” that the United States would approve a significant military aid package.
“We are neither resigned nor defeatists,” a French official said, adding: “There is no victory for Russia in Ukraine.”
Debra Kagan, a former U.S. diplomat and current senior adviser at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasian Center, said that if the West had given Ukraine weapons such as F-16 jets and German-made Taurus missiles, “we would not be able to do anything right now.” , we would have seen a completely different conflict.”
“And that’s what indecision is, and that’s what causes more death, more destruction, more difficult decisions in the future,” she added.
The meeting will begin at 16:00 Japan time, and President Macron is scheduled to hold a press conference at around 2:30 p.m. Japan time.
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