MOSCOW, March 7 — Russia warned French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday not to threaten it with nuclear rhetoric and, mocking his height by calling him 'Micron', ruled out European proposals to send peacekeeping forces from Nato members to Ukraine.
Macron said in an address to the nation on Wednesday that Russia was a threat to Europe, Paris could discuss extending its nuclear umbrella to allies and that he would hold a meeting of army chiefs from European countries willing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after a peace deal.
The Kremlin said the speech was extremely confrontational and that Macron wanted the war in Ukraine to continue.
"This (speech) is, of course, a threat against Russia," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"Unlike their predecessors, who also wanted to fight against Russia, Napoleon, Hitler, Mr Macron does not act very gracefully, because at least they said it bluntly: 'We must conquer Russia, we must defeat Russia'.”
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to the biggest confrontation between the West and Russia since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Kremlin and White House have said missteps could trigger World War Three.
Russian officials and lawmakers accused Macron of rhetoric that could push the world closer to the abyss. Russian cartoons cast him as Napoleon Bonaparte riding towards defeat in Russia in 1812.
"Micron himself poses no big threat though. He'll disappear forever no later than May 14, 2027. And he won't be missed," former President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X, looking ahead to the end of Macron's term.
Macron yesterday hit back at Russia.
"I know President Putin well. If he's reacting like that, it's because he knows what I said is true," Macron told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels.
"He's making a historical error: Napoleon waged conquests. The only imperialistic power I see in Europe right now is Russia," he said, responding to a question posed by a Russian journalist in exile in France.
Macron said he knew Putin could betray his word, because he had done just that when it did not respect the Minsk agreements signed with France, Germany and Ukraine after the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
He also said the reactions in Moscow yesterday were probably so vociferous because Russia's intentions to continue waging war with Europe eventually, if a rushed peace treaty in Ukraine is signed, had been uncovered.
"He was probably piqued by the fact we're exposing his game," Macron said.
Russia and the United States are the world's biggest nuclear powers, with over 5,000 nuclear warheads each. China has about 500, France has 290 and Britain 225, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
— Reuters
