5 questions about the evolution of the conflict

What are the probabilities that Putin invade other countries?

There is a leitmotif in the Russian invasions of the last twenty years. Each time, the Kremlin uses on the pretext of the defense of Russian-speaking minorities to intervene beyond its borders.

In August 2008, Medvedev Russia attacked Georgia under the grounds of defending the citizens of Southern Ossetia (some of whom are holders of Russian passports) engaged in a secession process with Tbilisi.

For Ukraine, in the spring of 2014 as in February 2022, same justification: support for prorussian movements in Crimea and Donbass. However, Estonia and Latvia (and Lithuania on a smaller scale) still house important Russian minorities, often downgraded, in border regions as in Narva (northeast of Estonia). In the south, the Russian enclave in Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, remains a place of tensions. In Transnistria, a separatist Russian -speaking region of Moldova, Moscow has had a contingent for thirty years.

In the event of a Russian attack on one of the members of NATO, should France send its soldiers there?

As part of the “reinforcement of the side is NATO”, the French army has already been deployed since 2022 in these countries bordering Russia. In total, 2,000 French soldiers are on the ground alongside other soldiers from European countries, also members of the Atlantic Alliance.

In Estonia, Paris dispatched armored vehicles and Caesar canons. In Romania, an “spearhead” battalion of NATO’s rapid reaction force is on site. Between November 2022 and March 2023, four Rafale planes were stationed in Lithuania; The next year, it was Mirage 2,000.

If one of the NATO member states was attacked by Russia, the Treaty of Alliance provides, in its article 5, that an “armed attack” against one of them “will be considered an attack on all parties”. But the final decision to intervene goes to the President of the Republic, chief of the armies according to the Constitution.

Deprived of American support, does Europe have the means to resist in the event of a generalized conflict on its soil?

The Baltian, Danish, German and Polish intelligence services estimated that the Russian army was reconstituted after the war against Ukraine to attack another neighbor from three to ten years.

The Think Tank Bruegel, based in Brussels, quantified European needs in the event of an American withdrawal. The figures are brutal. 300,000 additional soldiers should be formed: professionals, not conscripts. And also acquire 1,400 tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and 700 artillery pieces (the equivalent of the firepower of the French, British, Italian and German earth armies), make drones by thousands, open barracks …

In total, the defense effort would represent for Europeans an additional invoice of 250 billion euros per year, or 3.5 % of GDP against 2 % today. This would imply a political consensus and a desire for unprecedented pooling between states of the old continent. Possible, provided you go fast.

Does the rapprochement between Trump and Putin to stop fighting in Ukraine leads to a new war?

Donald Trump’s fascination disturbance for his Russian counterpart is a guarantee of uncertainties. How far will Washington buried the Russian conditions for a cease-fire in Ukraine? Will it be accompanied by an American withdrawal from Europe? Would Vladimir Putin feel reinforced in his future ambitions? “A peace in the words imposed by Moscow would be a danger to the whole continent,” says Claudia Major, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, in Berlin (SWP).

The accelerated reset of Russia worries Europeans. Last September, Putin ordered by decree to bring the staff of her army to 2.38 million soldiers. With 40 % of its budget dedicated to defense, “3,000 tanks and 300 fighter planes from more by 2030, which can believe in this context that today Russia will stop in Ukraine? Emmanuel Macron said in his address to the French on March 5, 2025.

Does the French nuclear weapon protect our country from an attack?

Designed by General de Gaulle to prevent any new occupation, our nuclear shield obeys voluntarily blurred conditions of employment. We speak of “strategic ambiguity”. Logic is defensive. Useing the nuclear fire, prerogative of the only president of the Republic, is only conceived if the enemy attacks “the vital interests of the country” – which are not defined either.

Would the head of state use it in the event of an invasion by conventional means? Or should we believe that “the nuclear arsenal, as it exists today, is not used to battle, but only to dissuade from a nuclear attack”, as argued by Guillaume Ancel, author of Small lessons on war (Ed. Otherwise)? Vast uncertainty.