French General Says Russia's Provocations Will Go Unpunished As NATO Weakened By US Withdrawal From Europe

(MENAFN- UkrinForm) This opinion was expressed by French general and military strategy expert Nicolas Richoux in an interview with Ukrinform's correspondent.

"The real problem, and Putin knows this well, is that NATO is a coalition. And when you want to intervene, you need unanimity. Vladimir Putin has unity in decision-making because he is the only one who makes decisions, he acts much faster. Because a coalition always involves discussion, it is always more difficult to make decisions. Who in this case will make the decision to shoot down a Russian plane ?" the general muses.

He recalled Turkey's reaction to a Russian plane flying over its territory in November 2015. The Su-24 plane, which violated its airspace for 15 seconds, was shot down.

According to Richoux, the“American withdrawal” from NATO makes Europeans too weak in front of Putin, so he will continue to“test” them in the future.

“I am very pro-Atlantic, and I am absolutely stunned by what I see. From the moment we can no longer rely on the Americans, the courage of Europeans is visibly weakening. France remains, perhaps Great Britain as well. So the coalition of NATO countries does not really exist. And Russia will continue,” he reflects.

According to the general, even during the Cold War, flights in the exclusive economic zone were dangerous. And NATO planes escorted Soviet planes“more or less politely.”

"But now it's different. These aircraft are special. As far as we know, this Su-31 is capable of carrying a modern Kinzhal missile with a range of 2,000 km, which is hypersonic and can carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. So, they violated the airspace for 12 minutes. In this way, they are telling us: the Baltic also belongs to us," he explains.

The general believes that Russia is trying to assert itself on the northern flank of Europe after the“loss” of Finland, which was neutral, and especially Sweden, which, having become a member of NATO, now poses a threat.

"They feel they are losing control of the Baltic, and that makes them very, very nervous. They will continue to provoke in order to assert their right to navigation, airspace, and so on. And so I'm not very optimistic right now. I think NATO will do nothing more than what it is doing today. Only declarations and condemnations. So this warning will go unpunished," Richoux concluded.

Read also: Estonia requests NATO Article 4 consultations - Rutte respond

Earlier, the Estonian Defense Forces published a map of the flight path of Russian MiG-31 fighters that violated Estonian airspace on September 19

As reported by Ukrinform, Czech President Petr Pavel said on Saturday that in the event of a violation by Russia, NATO must respond accordingly, including by military means, without ruling out the shooting down of a Russian aircraft.

Photo: Daniel WAMBACH

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