Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bilateral security agreement with Emmanuel Macron on Friday February 16 in Paris. Here’s what it contains.
A few hours after an agreement signed at Berlin with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Volodymyr Zelensky was in Paris to approve a similar text with Emmanuel Macron. The Ukrainian president signed an ambitious bilateral agreement with his French counterpart on Friday February 16, recognizing France’s military support for theUkraine in the long term, while awaiting the country’s probable accession to NATO.
“Global assistance”
France has committed to providing “up to three billion euros” in “additional” military aid to kyiv during this year. In the longer term, the agreement provides for “global assistance” for “a period of ten years” and as long as “Ukraine has not joined NATO”. The text notably announces a strengthening of cooperation between the two countries in the field of artillery. Finally, just like Germany, France promises to support Ukraine after the end of the war with the Russiain order to help it equip itself with a modern army capable of facing possible new invasions.
“A new phase” in the conflict
As the second anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine approaches, Emmanuel Macron recognized on Friday that “a new phase” was opening in the conflict and that Russia had “crossed several thresholds”. According to him, the death of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny in prison illustrates “in the most tragic way” the “hardening” of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Circumstances which justify, in the eyes of the French president, the urgent need for this bilateral security agreement.