French president admits no consensus exists on such a move as he urges fellow European leaders to take action rather than wait for US aid

Speaking at the end of the meeting, Macron warned: “There is a change in Russia’s stance. It is striving to take on further territory and it has its eyes not just on Ukraine but on many other countries as well, so Russia is presenting a greater danger.”

Among those present at the meeting were the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte.

  • @[email protected]
    23•10 months ago

    In retrospective everything is more clear. I would argue that it was fair bet to try to establish a deep economical connection with Russia as means to try to integrate it more into Europe. And we don’t know what would have happened if the west pushed for harder balkanization of Russia after Sowjets broke apart.

    • @gedaliyahOPM
      12•10 months ago

      Of course! Mutual interest and strong economic ties have a long and well-proven history of building peace.

      We’re learning that certain regimes are too fundamentally poisonous. They will undermine their own peace and prosperity just to dominate their rivals. See also North Korea and Iran

      • @[email protected]
        16•10 months ago

        I think the mistake was not to support democratic/liberal powers in Russia enough. Im my opinion the 1990th were a turning point in Russian history where it could have gone either ways. But also it would be really interesting to know how Putins strategy and vision for Russia developed over time, hope future historians can find it out.

        • @DandomRude
          8•10 months ago

          I think we should not forget that the West, especially the USA, definitely played a role in the 1990s in keeping Boris Yeltsin (and with him many of today’s oligarchs) in power and thus helped establishing the autocratic system that Russia has today.

          • @[email protected]
            1•10 months ago

            Not sure what you mean by helping Yeltsin stay in power? I can’t really remember Yeltsin power being in danger to beginn with. As far as I know, one of the bigger problems was the very president focus constitution, which made it really easy for Putin to consolidate Power and Oligarchs making a really bad judgement that they can control Putin.

            • @DandomRude
              4•10 months ago

              In the 1996 election, the USA under Bill Clinton actively supported Boris Yeltsin. Unfortunately, I can’t find any in-depth sources in English at the moment, but this article gives a general overview.

              Edit: Some more background info on the topic here.

              • @[email protected]
                2•10 months ago

                Fair point, but his opponent was Gennady Zyuganov, so we were all incredible lucky - this is not the worst possible timeline we live in.

                • @DandomRude
                  1•10 months ago

                  Yea, maybe. I’m just saying that the West has played a part in how the Russian system has developed into what it is today.