By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s international intelligence chief has mentioned French President Emmanuel Macron‘s refusal to rule out sending European troops to struggle Russian troopers in Ukraine was extremely dangerous and irresponsible.
Macron mentioned final month that there was no consensus on sending European troops to struggle in Ukraine however that nothing ought to be excluded, although the United States and different European members of the alliance have mentioned there have been no plans to take action.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deepest disaster in Moscow’s relations with the West because the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and President Vladimir Putin has warned that the West dangers scary a nuclear conflict if it sends troops to struggle in Ukraine.
Asked about Macron’s remarks, Sergei Naryshkin, the top of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the primary successor to the KGB’s First Directorate international spying part, mentioned they have been deeply irresponsible.
“This shows the high degree of political irresponsibility of Europe’s leaders today, in this case, the president of France,” Naryshkin informed state tv in remarks on Tuesday. “These statements are extremely dangerous.”
“It is sad to see this, sad to observe and sad to understand that the ability of current elites in Europe and the North Atlantic to negotiate is at a very low level,” he mentioned. “They more and more rarely demonstrate any common sense at all.”
Russia and the United States have the world’s largest arsenals of nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden has cautioned {that a} battle between Russia and NATO might set off World War Three.
After the Russian invasion in 2022, Western leaders mentioned they’d assist Ukraine defeat Russian troops on the battlefield and drive out Russian troops. Ukraine recaptured giant swathes of territory in 2022.
But Kyiv’s counteroffensive in 2023 didn’t pierce closely dug in Russian strains, and Russian forces have been pushing into Ukrainian territory simply as U.S. help for Ukraine is tangled in home political debates.
Russia controls just below one fifth of territory internationally recognised as Ukraine.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov in London, Ron Popeski in Winnipeg, Canada, and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Alison Williams and Gerry Doyle)
