Deployment of troops into Ukraine: the mayor of Kyiv prefers weapons to soldiers

While Russia claims to have shot down four ATACMS missiles, a long-range weapon recently supplied to Ukraine by the United States, over the annexed Crimean Peninsula on Friday night, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko defended the need to send more missiles. modern weapons” of the Ukrainian army.

“I would like to thank our partners for air defense and modern technology, which are not enough, even if today we feel more secure than a year ago,” he said on France Inter on Saturday morning. The mayor was questioned about Emmanuel Macron’s idea, which he updated and clarified in an interview with The Economist on Thursday, to send troops to Ukraine. Klitschko told himself “I am convinced that today it is much more important to provide us with modern weapons.” “We need more weapons,” he added, thanking him for the arms efforts over the past “year.”

On Thursday, despite the disagreements that arose in February, the French head of state insisted that we would have to “ask the question” about sending troops to Ukraine if Moscow came to “break through the front line” and Kyiv asked. A consideration that Moscow immediately condemned as “very dangerous.” “As for the arrival of foreign contingents, I think that today the issue is not so acute,” defended the mayor of the capital, the leader of the opposition in Ukraine.

Vitaliy Klitschko also considered that it was “not the time” to criticize the way President Vladimir Zelensky behaves during the offensive. Ukrainians, he said, must “remain united,” but “the time will come to work on the mistakes made.” “The only criticism I can make, despite the war, is that we must not lose our democratic gains in this fight,” warns the mayor of Kyiv. “I want to emphasize this to our president. »