Vladimir Putin's rejection of the US offer of a thirty-day ceasefire in Ukraine, which was accompanied by a plan to normalise all US-Russian relations - a golden offer that would allow the Russian president to get away with his military adventure in February 2022 - should give us food for thought.

What was going on? Are the Russian generals lying to their commander-in-chief, predicting that the Ukrainian army will soon collapse, just as the German army did on the Western Front in August 1918? Exactly how far does Putin want to go? Would he be content with the four Russian-speaking Ukrainian oblasts that he has annexed in his constitution? Or does he want to subjugate the whole of Ukraine? What is the Kremlin's ulterior motive in encouraging a new Russian militarism, with military education now being taught in secondary schools? Why is there so much warmongering on Russian state television? Is there a Russian military-political dream of retaking Moldova, or even the Baltic states?

Putin is a black box. No one knows his true intentions, not even his closest associates. Some present him as a non-warlike figure who simply wanted to stop NATO's continued expansion eastwards and protect certain Russian-speaking and Russophile communities in the Donbass. Others explain, with supporting texts, that his secret aim is to go down in history as the statesman who restored the Russian Empire. It's not certain, but it's quite possible.

Faced with this uncertainty, the European Union cannot afford to take the slightest risk. Militarily, it must prepare for the worst, i.e. an attack on its borders by the Russian army in a few years' time. This could, for example, take the form of an intervention in Estonia, under the pretext of ‘saving’ the originally Russian populations, victims of ‘persecution’.

Although located relatively far from Narva, we in France would be directly affected. Indeed, we would be obliged to come to Estonia's aid militarily, by virtue of Article 5 of NATO and Article 42-7 of the European Union, two regional organisations of which we are founder members and of which Estonia has become a member, with our explicit agreement.

France has a duty to take the treaties it signs seriously, otherwise there will be no diplomacy left.

The interests of the European Union and France in their policies to the east of the European continent are now clear. In the short term, they must help Ukraine avoid military collapse, because a Russian victory would only whet the Kremlin's appetite for other fronts, probably European ones. This will require a complete overhaul of our arms industries, which until now have been content to supply a French army that has occasionally been confronted with asymmetric conflicts, but never with high-intensity wars. If we are to supply Ukraine effectively with weapons, as Moscow did with North Vietnam from 1965 to 1975, our production of shells and drones is not up to the task.

In the medium term, we urgently need to rethink our concept of deterrence. Nuclear deterrence, invented by General de Gaulle and reserved for the defence of our ‘vital interests’, must obviously be retained. But it must be accompanied by a conventional deterrent, for two reasons.

Firstly, the war in Ukraine has taught us that conventional air attacks, because they are so precise, can now seriously affect the nerve centres of our defence. However, as we would not react to a conventional attack with a nuclear strike, it is important to develop new anti-aircraft capabilities (in particular against swarms of drones or hypervelocity gliding bombs) and retaliatory capabilities (missiles capable of destroying the enemy's launch sites).

Secondly, it is realistic to rule out the possibility of a French nuclear response in the event of Narva being attacked by the Russian army. It is important to maintain strategic ambiguity about the limits of our vital interests. But it is clear to everyone that the Estonian town of Narva, which borders Russia, does not fall within France's vital interests. But as we do not want the Russians to one day physically attack the European limes, we need to deter them by conventional means. For this deterrent to work, the Russians need to know that they won't be able to penetrate Estonian territory without killing French and British soldiers. French and British regiments and squadrons must therefore be pre-positioned in the Baltic countries.

The new French conventional deterrent also requires us to double (at least) the intervention capabilities of our army, from the current 15,000 men to 30,000 tomorrow.

Does this mean that France should seek to make Russia its enemy? Not at all. It is a country that is culturally close to us and that has, in the past, rendered notable services to France. As de Gaulle said, cooperation between the two countries has always been beneficial to both. We would be mistaken to see Russia today as our main enemy. For we do have a main enemy, and that is Islamism, which is killing our children in our streets.

But it has to be said that Vladimir Putin has set Russia on a dangerous course. He does not understand that the era of spheres of influence and ‘glacis’ is well and truly over. International law is now based on the concept of the freedom of self-determination of peoples. Russia and Ukraine freely decided to separate in 1991. This separation was confirmed in referendums. Putin has no right to go back on it.

The day the Russians give up their imperial ambitions, which are dangerous for peace in Europe, France will be more than happy to renew its ties with them, as was the case under Jacques Chirac. But until they make a complete change of course, we will need a credible conventional deterrent in addition to our traditional nuclear deterrent.

This blog was originally posted in Le Figaro, on Tuesday 10th June 2025, translated from French.

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