French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin frankly indicated, during their press conference last Monday evening, that the Ukrainian crisis is a confrontation between superpowers capable of crushing millions of people, according to French writer Vincent Gouvert.
In his column in the French magazine L'Obs, "Secret Issues", Joffre said that what these two presidents said, in that conference, live and on television, was an unprecedented event in the history of international relations, as the two presidents of two countries possessing nuclear weapons. In front of the cameras, frankly and sometimes rough, their differences over global security debated for nearly an hour of intense tension.
During this extraordinary press conference - says Juffair - and after 5 hours of dialogue in the Kremlin about the crisis caused by the deployment of 130,000 Russian soldiers on the border with Ukraine, the two presidents, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, reviewed the arguments and red lines for each side.
Putin, while clenching his fist, expressed his country's grumbling about the successive expansions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the "non-peaceful organization," he said.
He reiterated that he did not want Ukraine, the former jewel of the Russian Empire, to be part of that organization, to which Joffre commented, "Putin's anger was not fake", as he publicly raised the risk of nuclear war in the event of Kiev joining NATO, and this Exceptional, according to the author.
The Russian president also warned that if Ukraine, after becoming a member of NATO, seeks to militarily retake Crimea - which Russia annexed in 2014, Moscow will respond with force.
Here, Joffre says, Kiev's new allies, bound by Article 5 of the Treaty of Alliance to provide assistance, will inadvertently be drawn into a war with Russia.
Addressing reporters about nuclear war, Putin said, "Tell that to your readers and your viewers, and I'm sure they don't want it," adding, "Nor do I want it."
And then, says Joffre, the Russian president made an unexpected statement when he said that certainly in the event of a conventional war with NATO, Russia would not be a match for the forces of the 30 NATO countries, including the United States, before saying with victorious ecstasy, "But Remember, there are nuclear weapons!", noting that Russia's atomic weapons were sometimes "more advanced than others".
Despite Macron's attempt to hide his reaction to what Putin said, his coupons did not obey him, and he also raised the conversation to a strategic level, as he said even from the beginning of the press conference that France is authorized to conduct these negotiations with Russia because it is also a "capable" country. , referring to its openly possessing nuclear weapons, as is the case with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Joffre commented on this by saying that both men recalled that this issue is ultimately a confrontation between great powers capable of turning millions of human beings, in a matter of minutes, to ashes.