Franck PetitevilleProfessor of Political Science at Sciences Po Grenoble and at the Pacte laboratory

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, all the candidates in France's presidential election have uttered seemingly unequivocal words of condemnation. For some of them, however, this stance is a last-minute U-turn. In December 2021, Marine Le Pen stated in an interview with Polish media outlet Rzeczpospolita that Ukraine "belongs to the Russian sphere of influence". Eric Zemmour, for his part, declared on CNews in September 2020 that he saw Putin as "the most reliable ally" for France, and again on CNews on February 20 that "the original fault" of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was "the expansion of NATO to the East over the last thirty years". On TF1 on February 6, Jean-Luc Mélenchon also criticized the United States' plan to "annex Ukraine into NATO" (as if this organization were not made up of sovereign states).

The argument that NATO's encirclement of Russia is behind Putin's decision to "solve the problem" of Ukraine by force is, in any case, repeated by many of these presidential candidates. It does not fit in with either NATO's history or that of Russian foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. When, after the demise of the Soviet Union, the decision was taken by NATO members to maintain the organization, then to enlarge it to new members from the late 1990s, there was no longer any question of directing it against post-Soviet Russia. Several offers of "strategic partnership" were made to Moscow, and a "NATO-Russia Council" was even established.

However, views between NATO and Russia soon diverged during the conflicts in Bosnia (1992-1995) and Kosovo (1998-1999). In both cases, NATO intervention put an end to the conflicts, without the agreement of Yeltsin's Russia, which refused to recognize the reality of the mass crimes committed by Serbian militias in Bosnia, then by Milosevic's Serbia in Kosovo in 1998-1999. With Putin's arrival in power and the succession of his "little imperial wars" (Chechnya in 2000, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014), Russia gradually turned its back on the West.

No NATO provocation was behind Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. Although Ukraine's future membership of NATO had been discussed at a summit in 2008, no concrete steps had ever been taken. The real trigger for the Ukrainian crisis of 2014 was the European Union's proposed association agreement with Ukraine. The "Maïdan revolution" (February 2014), which favored closer ties with Europe, and the resulting ousting of pro-Russian President Yanukovych, were never accepted by Putin. The "threat" posed by NATO to Russia can therefore no more explain his attack on Ukraine today than it did in 2014. In fact, for the past twenty years, Putin has been primarily responsible for restoring the Atlantic Alliance's defensive role towards Russia.

For her part, among the other presidential candidates in France, Valérie Pécresse expressed a month ago the wish to "reach out to Russia" and establish with it "a pan-European security council from the Atlantic to the Urals" (Le Monde, January 26). The problem is that this structure already exists: it's the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)... which Putin has superbly ignored for the past two months. As for negotiating with Moscow, Emmanuel Macron has been trying for years to re-establish a normal dialogue with Putin. In recent weeks, he has spared neither effort nor courage to give diplomacy one last chance.

It's time, however, to face reality: Putin only understands the balance of power. He has no respect for the sovereignty of other states. His cynicism (justifying the invasion of Ukraine in the name of the fight against "Nazism") knows no bounds. It is a serious matter that several current candidates for the presidency of the Republic in France have shown such long-standing complacency towards him.

This article originally appeared in Libération March 3, 2022