the essential
Ukrainian Ambassador to France, HE Vadym Omelchenko was visiting Toulouse on Tuesday and Wednesday. Institutional, academic, industrial meetings or meetings with representatives of a Ukrainian community numbering around 3,000 nationals in Occitania, but also dinner with displaced people and veterans from Mariupol welcomed as interns by chef Thierry Marx: on the sidelines of an agenda dense, the diplomat also discussed with La Dépêche the period of uncertainty which is opening following the election of Donald Trump to the White House.
In Franco-Ukrainian relations, Toulouse has a particular historical status: the pink city has been twinned for almost 50 years with kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. And yesterday and Tuesday she welcomed the Ukrainian ambassador to France, Vadym Omelchenko. “Maintaining the very strong level of support that we have in France” is the objective of his visits to the region, explains the latter.
Busy institutional program, between prefecture, regional hotel and Capitol; meetings of strategic industries and businesses with a view to reconstruction; universities in Toulouse or, at the Purpan University Hospital, emergency doctors accompanying “Ukrainian caregivers in disaster medicine”… At the turn of this meeting, the news is also the uncertainty that Ukraine poses and Europe the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
“We will work together…”
By definition a diplomat, Vadym Omelchenko says nothing more than his president and his Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the first telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in which Elon Musk invited himself: “positive start, we will work together. ” But the Trumpian promise of peace within 24 hours with Russia remains “a great idea that is difficult to implement, as our president said,” the ambassador concludes.
Waiting ? The period which is opening is in fact relaunching the French position within the EU and NATO, he notes. “I would like to say that President Macron had foreseen this uncertainty a long time ago, when he put forward his idea of autonomous European security as a strategic necessity,” recalls Vadym Omelchenko for whom “France remains unquestionably the leader in the 'European Union'. But “certain European countries unfortunately do not understand his position”, he regrets. Refusing, however, to name any Trojan horse, even Hungarian, he warns: “Certainly, there are not many, but enough for Putin's objective: to destroy European solidarity.”
Defense cooperation
Faced with this threat? From now on, “France and Ukraine see themselves as strategic partners for the development of cooperation around armaments”, points out the diplomat who met representatives of defense industries on Tuesday. Feedback from the Ukrainians on French weapons in real combat conditions, improvement of the equipment accordingly, but also training near Reims of the first 2,500 soldiers of the Anne Brigade of kyiv, whom he sees this Thursday… Once said that “according to our military, the CAESAR gun is the best in the world”, the urgency remains: “we need more weapons and ammunition” while “North Korea and Iran provide Russia three times more shells and missiles than all of our Western partners.
Vadym Omelchenko then quotes Churchill facing Roosevelt in 1939: “give us weapons and we will finish the job”. Without forgetting De Gaulle of June 18 to evoke today's Ukraine: “France is not alone! It is not alone! It is not alone!” is not alone, facing an enemy who aims [ses] residential neighborhoods to “sow terror”, “we still have not obtained authorization from our partners to strike the missile and drone launch sites in Russia. That's the problem”, regrets the diplomat. As for the priority aid he would like from French citizens? “Above all, don’t forget us,” he concludes.
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