Christian Hartmann via Reuters
WAR IN UKRAINE – “Important decisions” taken “in view of the evolution of the situation in Ukraine”. After the end of a new Defense and Security Council held this Saturday, February 26 at the start of the evening, the Élysée announced the reinforcement of its support for Ukraineparticularly in defense equipment.
Emmanuel Macron also asked the Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, “the withdrawal of Russian troops from his soil”, from which departed on February 24 the Russian-led offensive towards Kiev. “The President of the Republic wanted to denounce the seriousness of a decision which would consist in authorizing Russia to deploy nuclear weapons on Belarusian soil”, explains the press release from the presidency, demanding the withdrawal “as soon as possible of Russian troops of its soil, which lead to a unilateral and unjust war”.
Paris has decided “the additional delivery of defense equipment to the Ukrainian authorities as well as fuel support”, indicated the presidency, without giving details on the type of these armaments. Ukraine recently submitted to the French Ministry of the Armed Forces a list of military equipment, in particular air defensewhich she urgently needs.
Earlier in the afternoon, Germany – like other EU countries – had announced its willingness to deliver arms to Ukraine, after several days of hesitation or waiting. In concrete terms, 1,000 rocket launchers will come directly from German army stocks and 400 others, which were initially delivered to the Netherlands, will now go to Ukraine. Added to this are 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles and nine howitzers from Estonia, which had acquired them first after Berlin and which belonged to the army of the former communist East Germany.
The EU agrees to activate (in part) its financial threat
“It is not acceptable that the Russians demand the surrender of Ukraine, its neutralization and that it renounce its NATO perspective. The ceasefire cannot afford any preconditions”, had firmly affirmed the Elysée a little earlier in front of the French and international press, while the Russians on their side assert that “the Ukrainians refused the negotiations” and thus justify the continuation of the fighting. “The discussion must start after the ceasefire. It cannot commit now”, retorted the French presidency.
“We want to force President Putin to review his plans, we must not take Kiev, he will pay dearly for it”, had also warned the French presidency. Thursday evening, the French president called his Russian counterpart to ask him for a ceasefire.
Emmanuel Macron has also “acted a strengthening of economic and financial sanctions in coordination with the Europeans and the Americans”, as well as “national measures to freeze the financial assets of Russian personalities”, and finally “new measures”, to be taken “with European partners regarding the ease of the Swift interbank platform”, reported the Elysée.
Germany had explained that it was working on “a targeted and functional limitation” of Swift for Russian financial institutions, saying that it wanted to “limit the collateral damage of a disconnection from Swift”. The President of the European Commission, Ursurla von der Leyen, announced in the process “to commit to ensuring that a number of Russian banks are withdrawn from Swift. This will prevent them from operating worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports,” she explains.
First, we commit to ensuring that a certain number of Russian banks are removed from SWIFT.⁰
It will stop them from operating worldwide and effectively block Russian exports and imports.—Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 26, 2022
Swift is one of the largest banking and financial messaging networks, which allows interbank settlements between institutions around the world and, for example, prevents Germany from having to pay for its Russian gas in cash. Excluding a country from this system is considered an “atomic weapon” in financial matters. Because disconnecting a State from Swift also means preventing its own banks from making transactions with the banks of the punished country.
Some of these increased sanctions will be taken quickly at national level while others require coordination with other EU countries.
The RT France channel and the Sputnik agency suspended?
It has also “been recorded measures to fight against propaganda from influencers and Russian media on European soil”, according to the Elysée. The RT France channel and the Sputnik agency could be concerned “but not only”, said the same source.
“There is no immediate decision” for RT and Sputnik because specific media law applies for them and Paris wishes to “act in coordination with European partners”, according to the Elysée.
On Thursday, the French media regulator, Arcom, said it was extremely vigilant about the information broadcast by RT in French and did not rule out, in the event of breaches, a process of suspending the Russian channel. Funded by Russia, the French version of the Russian news channel RT, a variation of RT (formerly Russia Today), was launched on December 18, 2017.
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