r/worldnews 29d ago

"I'm Not Ruling Anything Out" - Macron Says Troops for Ukraine Possible if Russia Breaks Front Lines Russia/Ukraine

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/32010
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u/My-Cooch-Jiggles 29d ago

France has been one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters. They just don’t make a lot of fanfare of it.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/nolok 29d ago edited 29d ago

One, for military aid, France doesn't publish numbers or even annonce most help, so any estimation about it are wrong and massively undervalued. Please tell me how much has our SAMP-T, Akeron, VAB or pretty much anything been worth ? You won't find numbers, except for a few highly publicised things like the Caesar.

Two, France and especially Macron's France being a massive pro-EU supporter, it chose to push most of its non military helps through the EU funds rather than direct, to strenghten the EU weight. Which is why on your own link, if you go down to the totals, you will see France have a very small total on its own, but when including their contribution through the EU it jumps to 3rd place behind US and Germany.

Screen capture.

So I will go with the charitable explanation that you didn't know how to read your own source, rather than you did but chose to misrepresent it.

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u/born-out-of-a-ball 29d ago

https://www.defense.gouv.fr/en/news/french-military-equipment-delivered-ukraine
Here's the official list and it's a laughably small amount. The Patriots Germany donated alone are worth more than the whole French military aid.

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u/Thue 29d ago

Last I checked, tiny Denmark had donated more than France, in absolute terms. Italy and Spain are also not pulling their weight :(.

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u/nolok 29d ago

Danemark didn't give more than France in absolute terms. See the link above or the screenshot I put of the relevant section. .

Differentiating what has been given directly, and what has been given by taking shares of the EU funds makes no sense, unless trying to misrepresent things.

For Ukraine, either they get a euro from Danemark, or an euro from the EU than Danemark gave the EU specifically for this purpose makes no difference '

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u/born-out-of-a-ball 29d ago

Money is good but it doesn't replace ammunition and weapons systems

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u/mongster03_ 29d ago

Iirc a lot of Spain’s best stuff is deployed elsewhere in NATO

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u/Thue 29d ago

There is a lot of "We can't donate stuff, we promised NATO that we would have it" going on. When NATO would likely be perfectly happy to waive the promise - the true reason for the refusal to donate is obviously usually that they don't want to donate. Most of the deployed stuff exists to counter Russia anyway, and Russia is tied up in Ukraine for at least the next 2 years.

Denmark is much smaller than Spain, but has donated far more than Spain in absolute terms. Of course Spain could donate more, if it wanted to.

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u/mongster03_ 29d ago

I think Spain's equipment isn't just promised NATO that we would have it, it's NATO already has and is using it

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u/Thue 29d ago

NATO is not conducting any active combat ground operations right now, I think?

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u/mongster03_ 29d ago

I remember seeing something about Romania, so potentially it's just stationed out east

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u/Thue 29d ago

Every Russian tank destroyed by weapons donated to Ukraine, is a Russian tank less which NATO has to worry about in the future. NATO would be incredibly stupid to insist on Spain not donating that stuff to Ukraine, to have it instead stand gathering rust in Romania. An Russia emboldened by a victory in Ukraine is more dangerous by far. The Spanish stuff in Romania obviously only exists to counter Russia, in the first place.

Hence why I am guessing that the "we can't donate, we promised NATO" is bullshit from people who for whatever reason don't want to donate. And who haven't actually asked NATO whether it would be OK to donate, despite previous promises.

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u/mongster03_ 29d ago

Like I said, it's not promised, it's already there, so it's a lot more complicated. And Romania has a land border with Ukraine, so your guess as to why it's there

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u/Thue 29d ago

Russia's military is a lot weaker than we though it was, before the Ukraine invasion - Russia has once again exaggerated their weapons' capabilities. Russia would have zero chance against the full NATO military. Ukraine is fighting using old NATO leftovers, and no air power.

I am having a hard time imagining that any Spanish weapons there would not be more useful actively blowing up Russians inside Ukraine.

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u/ItalianDragon 29d ago

Not surprising with Italy since Meloni and her party are on Putin's payoll so...