Macron's diplo adviser Emmanuel Bonne's intv at #AspenSecurityForum on Ukraine, Russia, China [inclu saying China sending "kind of military equipment" to Russia]
A revealing convo w/@jimsciutto in fluent English, quite rare to see Bonne at such a public forum. More would benefit France 1/15
Bonne (Macron's diplo adviser): What is crucial is that Russia be defeated in UKR, not be tempted to attack other Euro countries... the most basic security guarantees we can give is advanced weaponry... In Vilnius we gave UKR a v.clear perspective abt its NATO membership..." 2/15
Bonne "we are ready to consider this, we were v.much in support of credibilising the perspective that UKR joins NATO and this has to go also w/EU membership at conditions we need to refine together because what is at stake when it comes to NATO is Art5..."
Bonne (Macron diplo adviser) "meanwhile we need to provide UKR w/the capacity to win the war, it's a sequence, joining NATO now is not necessarily the best answer. the best answer is in the equipment, the intel, money"
Bonne "our experience is that RUS has taken precautions to avoid any serious mistake targeting NATO territory, that is not per chance... we have learned a lot in the course of the last 16 months, our concern at the beg of the war was not to trigger the 3rd world war..." 5/15
Bonne "16months later we are less impressed...threat that Putin represents is less pregnant [he directly translated the FR word prégnant] we see it as dangerous..the situation remains volatile but we are less afraid, and this is a big lesson from the last 16 months I wld say"6/15
Bonne, post Prigozhin attempt "impression is that a leader the almighty tsar of all Russia who said in the morning he will punish Prigozhin and meets w/him in the afternoon obviously sends a signal of weakness, Russia is not as solid today as it was before..." 7/15
Bonne (Macron diplo adv) "Putin's regime is more fragile today but I wld not bet on regime change in RUS I wld bet more on our own forces, our own capacities to have UKR win the war and put Putin on the backfoot so he will be obliged to acknowledge defeat »
Bonne: Macron's starting point "is building a stronger Europe, his conviction is if we want remain relevant as France, Euros etc, we need to be much more robust, need to be operational and committed partners to the US and to many other partners...more strat approach to our env »
Bonne "China is a challenge for US+EU, we need to be more capable to stand on our own feet and be reliable for the US...a strat awakening in Europe today... the point is abt ourselves what we can do for ourselves capacity we have to partner w/US not delegate responsibility »
Bonne "what matters most at the moment is to deter China from taking action [on Taiwan] that was v.much core conv that Macron had w/Xi, conveyed clearly message that you shld not do it, that will have a big price that will force us to go for massive sanctions+prob much more
Bonne "I'd like China to demonstrate that it is a credible partner in fixing [UKR] at same time their attitude cld have been worse, they cld have been much more explicitly engaged in this war, we need to continue to deter them from getting more involved in this conflict »
Bonne "I dont believe China will provide a sol for the war, for the war to stop we only need Putin to withdraw, we need UKR to beat RUS in the ground+we need to build a v.solid nego framework in which we can bring partners from diff constituencies from global south including China
Bonne "There are indications that they [China] are doing things we wld prefer them not to do but at the point where we are when the counteroffensive is beg in the field...what we need most is Chinese abstention" [things that you wldnt want them to do can you be more specific?]
Bonne answering: "delivery of weapons certainly, economic support [they're delivering weapons to RUS for use in UKR?] well kind of military equipments as far as we know they are not delivering massively military capacities to Russia but we need no delivery" 15/15
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