Leonid Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the New Europe Center, highlighted the strategic partnership between Ukraine and France, shared security challenges, and key priorities for future defence cooperation during his address at the IV Ukraine–France Forum.
Key points of the speech:
- Ukraine and France strengthen each other: Ukraine brings battlefield experience, cutting-edge technologies, and the will to win, while France possesses a powerful defence industry and frozen Russian assets;
- France has been a trailblazer for many initiatives that other countries hesitated to support — such as the creation of the Coalition of the Willing. The past three and a half years have demonstrated that every step taken by Paris has been justified;
- Ukraine must counter not only the narrative of “defeat” but also the myth of “impossibility of victory.” In this context, partners’ information support is no less important than military assistance;
- security guarantees for Ukraine are needed not after a ceasefire but now. Their implementation should not be postponed until the end of the war, as they could shape the negotiation process and help create conditions for peace;
- frozen Russian assets are a tool of deterrence. Ukraine is not calling for their confiscation but for their use to finance defence and joint projects with partners. If Russia understands that Ukraine has secured funding for the next five years, the narrative of “pressuring Ukraine into surrender” will lose its meaning;
- Sky Shield — the protection of Ukrainian airspace by European partners — is a strategic necessity. Securing Ukraine’s defence infrastructure through a European air shield will allow the country to scale up weapons production without the need to relocate it underground;
- without Ukraine’s experience — a country capable of intercepting 600–700 strike drones in a single attack — Europe will lack the resources, including the F-35, to counter such threats. What is happening now is, in fact, a stress test for the security guarantees Europe plans to provide to Ukraine.
Watch the recording in Ukrainian: https://cutt.ly/JrMLTgUJ
The Forum is organized by the New Europe Center in partnership with Ifri with the support of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. For this event, the New Europe Center is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.
