French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had decided to “take Ukraine off the map of countries.”
In response, the minister told France Inter radio station that the European sanctions announced in the past 24 hours were aimed at “stifling Russia’s work, stifling Russia’s work.”
Le Drian said that Putin “opted an all-out offensive – he decided to get Ukraine off the map.”
The minister said that the French sanctions against Russia, which President Emmanuel Macron has not yet announced, “will be strict and strong – this means freezing their means and freezing their checkbooks, and this means the inability to carry out economic activities in France.”
Asked why restrictions on Russia’s access to the SWIFT banking system had not yet been included in the sanctions, Le Drian said, “because we had to move quickly.”
He added that there are no taboos “on penalties, and there will be other penalties.”
The minister said European leaders had received Ukrainian requests for military, financial and humanitarian aid, and said they were following them up.
They ordered a full list of [military] “The equipment we are studying,” he said.
Le Drian said the Ukrainian president’s security is “a central element of what’s going on right now,” after Volodymyr Zelensky’s comments that Russia was targeting him and his family.
The minister said, “It is important [Zelensky] He remains in office “and that France is ready to help ‘if necessary’.”
“It’s not the same as the Cold War,” Le Drian said today. “Now there is a war in the heart of Europe.”
