Russia-Ukraine Negotiations

<excerpt> There he goes again, another headline-grabbing statement from French President Emmanuel Macron...

Gaining favor without paying a price seems to be ingrained in Macron’s DNA. And in that sense, his latest statement is just one more instance of a French president trying to score geopolitical points. This time, however, rather than a throw-away line, Macron’s comments may have revealed more serious thinking.

Weeks earlier, France’s Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Burkhard had written to half his NATO colleagues, exploring the possibility of a coalition of the willing to take over certain tasks from Ukraine — including manning defensive systems, training forces in country, launching cyber operations and offering help in demining.

No military leader would send this kind of letter without clear backing from their country’s top political leadership. And every ally, I am told, reacted with a furious “WTF?” Seeing a sneaky political end run around them, they made clear their answer was an emphatic no.

And yet, it seems Paris didn’t listen — or possibly even care — as Macron raised the possibility publicly despite his allies’ clear response, which was reiterated by leaders gathered in Paris before his press conference. Instead, the French leader wanly noted, “There is no consensus today to send ground troops officially”... </excerpt>

Even as he promises international partners that Ukraine will handle the fighting if given needed weapons and other support, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top military commanders have failed so far to come up with a clear plan to conscript or recruit many thousands of new soldiers critically needed to defend against Russia’s continuing attacks. Zelensky’s inability to forge a political consensus on a mobilization strategy — despite months of warnings about a severe shortage of qualified troops on the front — has fueled deep divisions in Ukraine’s parliament and more broadly in Ukrainian society. It has left the military relying on a hodgepodge of recruiting efforts and sown panic among fighting-age men, some of whom have gone into hiding, worried that they will be drafted into an ill-equipped army and sent to certain death given that aid for Ukraine remains stalled in Washington...