Europe must get ‘organised’ in case US cuts Kyiv aid: Macron

STOCKHOLM: French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called on European countries to back Ukraine “over the long term” and get ready in case Washington decides to stop supporting the war-torn country.

Tens of billions of dollars in US aid has been sent to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, but Republican lawmakers have grown reluctant to keep supporting Kyiv, saying it lacks a clear end game as the fighting grinds on.

“We must organise ourselves in such a way that if the United States were to make a sovereign choice to stop or reduce this aid, it should have no impact on the ground”, he told reporters in Stockholm, alongside Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

“We Europeans must continue to support the Ukrainian people,” Macron said, stressing that Ukraine was a European country.

“This is first and foremost our problem,” he added. “We have a strategic objective: Russia cannot win.”

The French president is set to make a new visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in February.

France is working on a new bilateral security agreement with Ukraine -- along the lines of a pact agreed between Kyiv and London -- that would be announced during Macron´s trip to Kyiv next month.

Earlier this month Macron urged French defence manufacturers to boost production and innovation as Europe struggles to increase arms supplies to buttress Ukraine.Meanwhile, Russia´s latest overnight attacks on military and energy infrastructure in Ukraine killed two, as frontline shelling left one more dead, authorities said on Tuesday.

Moscow´s army, meanwhile, said its air defences downed 21 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and the annexed Crimean peninsula, as Kyiv steps up cross border aerial attacks.

Ukraine said Russian forces had launched two missiles and 35 attack drones across Ukraine and that 20 of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had bypassed air defence systems.

“The enemy directed some of the attack UAVs along frontline territories, trying to hit fuel and energy infrastructure, and civilian and military facilities near the front line and the state border with the Russia,” the air force said in a statement.

Officials in Kyiv have called on Western allies to bolster its air defence capabilities and said gaining control of the country´s air space is a priority for this year.

The air force statement said that defensive systems mainly in eastern and southern regions had downed just 15 of the Iranian-designed drones.

Authorities said the barrage damaged civilian infrastructure in Kyiv and the regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv, where officials said two people were wounded.

Ukrenergo, a Ukrainian energy provider, confirmed one of its substations in a central region had been hit.

In the eastern Donetsk region, prosecutors said a Russian S-300 missile attack had killed one person and wounded another.

“A 38-year-old man who was riding a bicycle home from work was killed... A 50-year-old woman was injured. She was taken to the hospital,” prosecutors said in a statement.

The regional governor later said a 47-year-old woman was killed by Russian shelling on the frontline town of Avdiivka, a hot spot of fighting where Russian forces are making incremental gains.

In the southern region of Kherson, which the Kremlin claimed to have annexed along with the Donetsk region in 2022, the governor said Russian shelling overnight had killed one man and wounded his wife.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, falling debris from a downed Russian drone injured one man, officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in response to the drone wave that Russia had fired some 330 missiles on Ukraine and around 600 attack UAVs in January alone.

“We must ensure Ukraine´s control over its skies, which is also critical to ensuring security on the ground -- from frontline positions to hospitals and schools in the rear,” he said.

Zelensky said Ukraine was working with its allies to bolster the country´s air defence systems, naming it as a priority along with electronic warfare systems.