Before the talks between the presidents of Ukraine and France, Minister of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Taran informed in detail Ambassador of France to Ukraine Etienne de Poncins about a significant aggravation of the situation in the area the Joint Forces Operation (JFO), paying special attention to the significant increase in the recent military presence of the Russian Federation along the border with Ukraine and in the occupied Crimea.
“We cannot afford to underestimate the situation and are fully aware that Russia is capable of planning for Ukraine a repetition of the Georgian scenario of 2008. For this, provocations can be used to accuse the Armed Forces of Ukraine of attacking civilians, especially since there are already more than 400,000 people who were issued Russian passports in the occupied territories,” the press service of the Defense Ministry quoted Taran as saying on April 13.
According to him, for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the deployment of forward command posts and an extensive command and control system of the Russian Federation troops near the Ukrainian borders has been recorded. Such a massing of Russian troops in the north, east and south of Ukraine, according to Taran, threatens not only the security of Ukraine, but also the stability in Europe.
Taran pointed out that the most powerful signal that could revive the leadership of the Russian Federation and prevent the intensification of aggression against Ukraine could be the provision of an Action Plan for NATO membership to Ukraine in the near future, in which Ukraine counts on the position of the French Republic as a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. The Minister of Defense of Ukraine also noted the importance of military-technical Ukrainian-French cooperation in order to strengthen the capabilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The French Ambassador promised to bring the information received to French President Emmanuel Macron and expressed hope that the talks between the presidents of the two countries will meet expectations.
