French President Emmanuel Macron‘s recent overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin represent yet another profound misunderstanding of the war in Ukraine.
Paris welcomed Putin’s “readiness” for bilateral talks with Macron after the French leader said last week that it would be useful for Europe to talk to Putin. But this only demonstrates that almost four years into the war, Macron has failed to grasp what it truly represents: an existential threat to European security that demands military resolve and pressure, not more pointless talks.
Across Europe, officials are speaking with concern about what Washington may or may not do next regarding Ukraine. The United States, they warn, is no longer willing to support Ukraine or Europe. And yet, when pressed to fill that gap, Europeans reach for the very same tools they say do not work, offering more conversation instead of hard decisions.
Macron has followed this pattern for years. In 2022, as Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine, he warned against “humiliating” Russia. He later said he spent at least 100 hours on the phone with Putin in the first six months of the war. Those calls produced nothing.
Those conversations should have made it clear that talking will not get Putin anywhere. And while Washington pushes to reach an agreement that Moscow will likely to reject, Macron thinks he may be more convincing. Of course, the reason why Europe is absent from talks is that it has no leverage or ability to shape the outcome. Moscow does not take Europe seriously. Why would it? Europe has chronically underinvested in defense, repeatedly demonstrated reluctance to recognize Ukraine’s war as its own, and shown neither the military capability nor political will to enforce consequences.
The European Union’s failure to use frozen Russian assets underscores the problem. Around $353 billion in Russian central bank reserves are held in European jurisdictions. Brussels could have utilized these funds for Ukraine’s military effort or to resolve its own financial problems. Instead, Europe has again stopped short, showing weakness in the face of Russian pressure.
France’s military plans tell a similar story.
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The newly proposed voluntary military service, presented as a major reform, aims to recruit about 10,000 people by 2030. Participants would largely be unpaid. This is clearly not a serious effort to generate force. It’s just pretending to be so.
Top line: Europe still refuses to take the threat seriously. Russia, in contrast, has reorganized its economy and manpower around the war effort. That gap between the threat and the response explains why European warnings carry so little weight in Moscow and Washington. Until Europe aligns its language with action, recognizes that Russia respects only power, and that Ukraine’s war is fundamentally a common European war, these diplomatic gestures will remain exercises in futility.
