Macron Vows to Give Air Defense Systems to Ukraine “Within Weeks”

President Emmanuel Macron has confirmed that France will send radars, missiles, and air defence systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

In an interview with broadcaster France 2 on Wednesday, Oct. 12, Macron said that France would also provide Ukraine with hardware and training, with a focus on Ukraine defending itself against Russian missile and drone attacks.

The French president said the decision followed “an unprecedented phase of bombings” on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv.

Ukrainian emergency services confirmed on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 12 that the death toll from Monday’s strike on the capital had risen to 19, with a further 105 people injured.

Questioned on the effectiveness of western sanctions, Macron said: “Russia is profoundly destabilized in its capacity to regenerate its arms, its production, and industry.”

“We are in a hybrid war,” he added. “We are not just using weapons on the ground but using weapons of information.”

Macron said that Russia was deploying a variety of tactics in its ongoing illegal invasion, including blackmail and attacks on the global food supply, the weaponizing of migration, and exploiting social media platforms to push its propaganda.

The president, however, refused to brand Russia a “terrorist state”, saying that “labels have little consequences”.

“There’s one state that’s declared war and that’s more than enough,” he added.

Meanwhile, U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference on Oct. 12 that the U.S. and its allies need to do more to supply Ukraine with military aid.

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“What needs to be done here by all the various countries that were at the conference today is chip in and help them rebuild and sustain an integrated air and missile defense system,” he said.

“Many countries have Patriot, many countries have other systems, there’s a whole series of Israeli systems that are quite capable. The Germans have systems as we mentioned, so a lot of the countries that were here today have a wide variety of systems.

“The task will be to bring those together, get them deployed, get them trained – and because each of these systems is different, make sure they can link together … and make sure they have radars to talk to each other so they can acquire targets on inbound flights.”

Milley added that carrying out the strategy would prove to be “quite complicated from a technical standpoint,” but said he believed it to be achievable.