France and Britain are proposing a month-long ceasefire in Ukraine “on air, on seas, and for the infrastructures”. The cessation of hostilities will not apply to ground fighting.
Source. French President Emmanuel Macron made the remarks in an interview with Le Figaro on Sunday after “crisis talks” at a summit in London.
He also suggested that European countries increase their defense spending to 3.0-3.5 percent of GDP to respond to Washington’s changing priorities, which is refusing to spend resources in military support for Europe.
“Over the past three years, the Russians have spent 10 percent of their GDP on defense,” the president told. – So we must prepare for what comes next.”
“There will be no European troops on Ukrainian soil in the coming weeks,” Macron assured in the interview.
Therefore, the expected cessation of military actions will not initially concern ground fighting, he clarified. Because “in the case of a ceasefire, it will be very difficult to verify whether the sides (on the ground) are respecting the ceasefire,” the president explained, adding that the front line is huge, “equivalent to the Paris-Budapest line.”
The possibility of deploying European troops, in which France and the United Kingdom are ready to participate, will only appear at a later stage, he continued.
For Macron, “the question is how we will use this time (of the ceasefire) to try to achieve an affordable peace with negotiations that will last several weeks and then, once peace is signed, the deployment of troops.”
“We want peace. But we do not want peace at any price, without security guarantees,” Macron stressed.