And France laid eyes on Ukraine's minerals

The Minister of French Defense, Sebastien Lecornu, revealed on Thursday that he has negotiated with Ukraine last October with the supply of France with the minerals needed for his defense industry, but gave assurances that the purpose of these discussions is not to get compensation for the help given to Kiev authorities in the war, informs EFE.

In an interview with Radio France Info, Lecornu explained that these negotiations were carried with his Ukrainian counterpart, and that we should not be 'naive' because 'economic problems are always intertwined with military, strategic or security aspects', and France also defends their interests.

'I myself -he said -together with my counterpart, the Minister of Ukrainian Defense, I discussed this issue for France's own needs. Because I have some armament industries that will need access to a certain number of raw materials in the coming years'.

Asked about the intention manifested by US President Donald Trump to get the reimbursement of money that the United States has allocated to the Ukraine war, the French minister did not want to go into details, but wanted to point out. « Let's not be naive, what (French president) Emmanuel Macron does for months is to defend French interests in this field, » said Lecornu, adding that there are many interests in the game.

On the other hand, Lecornu said that France will not agree with the decision on the use of its nuclear weapons in the debate on a possible expansion of the French discouragement capacity so as to cover the whole of Europe.

'French nuclear discouragement is French. This means that the system of weapons, its control, the way of producing them and, above all, the decision making it only corresponds to the head of state. He is something French and he will remain French, 'he insisted.

However, Lecornu recalled that, from Charles de Gaulle's presidency, there were several French presidents, including Macron, who said that 'our vital interests have a European dimension'.

The French minister avoided the question as far as possible about the possible reference of European troops to Ukraine as a guarantee in the case of a peace agreement.

« We are not there, » he replied when he was asked about the figure, by 30,000 soldiers, whom it is assumed that France discussed with the United Kingdom and which Lecornu described as a 'average figure'.

In any case, he once again acknowledged that sending troops would be one of the possible guarantees 'in the last stage', knowing that Russia violated the Minsk agreements signed in 2014 between Moscow and Kiev.

Lecornu insisted that there is no surprise that Donald Trump said that Ukraine will not join NATO, but that 'true surprise' is that in its bilateral discussions with Russia 'there are important concessions since the beginning of the negotiations'.