Macron Denies France Violated European Sanctions with Russia Arms Sales
PARIS (AA) – Emmanuel Macron has denied allegations that France had breached European sanctions by approving the export of of military equipment to Russia.
“France has complied in accordance with its commitments to international law,” the president said in response to a question on whether he was okay with the fact that Paris has delivered military equipment to Russia, even as he is trying to broker a diplomatic solution to end the war.
It has been reported that France has delivered military equipment worth 152 million euros ($167 million) since 2015, which Moscow is now reportedly using in its war against Ukraine.
During a visit to a reception center for refugees in the region of Maine et Loire in western France, the head of state was confronted by the media on the findings of investigative journalism outfit Disclose, which established that between 2015 and 2020, France had secretly armed Russia.
Macron said the decision on the delivery regarding the arms contracts was taken by his predecessor, Francois Hollande. Some of these contracts were suspended, as they were not consistent with international law and the situation at the time in 2014, when Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.
On Monday, the non-profit investigative media platform ‘Disclose’ leaked documents from the latest French Parliamentary report on arms exports, which revealed that France had issued 76 export licenses for war material to Russia since 2015. The Hollande and Macron governments delivered the arms even after the European Union imposed an arms embargo in 2014 in the wake of Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
The report by Disclose claimed that the French government took advantage of a legal loophole in the embargo and continued to carry out the obligations of the arms contract since the embargo was “not retroactive” and only applied to new contracts.
While most of these pieces of equipment are not lethal, they are meant for modernizing the Russian military and could be already used in the Ukraine war. Military experts have detected the use of this French state-of-the-art equipment on combat planes and tanks by the Russian armed forces in its bombing campaigns and making advancements towards the capital Kyiv.
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