Moscow jails Ukrainian journalist in absentia; US State Department vows Western support for Kyiv despite conservative wave across NATO; British charity founder dies on battlefield
July 2, 2024
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday he expected European allies to keep up strong support for NATO despite a far-right victory in the first round of French elections, AFP reported, and as the pro-Ukraine parties around the Alliance member states are embattled.
As widely expected, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and her populist party crushed Emmanuel Macron’s center-left coalition in French elections by about 34 percent to 21 percent in the first go-round, making a bold statement about the French diminished appetite for immigration and support for Ukraine. Macron and his pro-Kyiv pact have a steep climb to overcome that margin in the next round.
Worse for Kyiv, similar right-wing groups have gained momentum in other EU member states. In the US, the anti-NATO and Ukraine-skeptical base of Republican candidate Donald Trump is gloating after a dismal presidential debate performance by pro-Kyiv US President Joe Biden last week.
“The alliance is moving to make sure that we have the right defenses across the alliance where they’re needed, where they matter,” Blinken said at the Brookings Institution in Washington, a non-partisan organization that is about as close as US think tanks come to centrist.
“This has been a clear trajectory for the last three and a half years. I don’t actually see that changing irrespective of the politics of the moment in Europe,” Blinken said. “We have very strong allies; very strong partners,” he said, pointing to Italy, led by its most right-wing leader since World War II, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. She, as AFP noted, “has bucked some of her political allies by supporting Ukraine.”
Meloni is the exception within the EU. The European Parliament, generally a reliable bellwether for political winds within the bloc, marked a notable shift to the more isolationist right in the 2024 elections, with France leading the populist charge.
Nonetheless, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel called France “our oldest ally, with whom we have a long and proud history of democratic values.”
France’s National Rally has long held unpopular views about Paris’s relationship with Moscow. However, its leader Jordan Bardella, who could become the next prime minister, said in a recent debate that he would not let Russia “absorb an allied state like Ukraine,” AFP reported.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/35157
Orban is forming a putler bloc in Europe.
DT:
“Viktor Orban has announced plans for a new hard-Right bloc in the European Union’s parliament that will oppose aid to Ukraine.
The Hungarian prime minister will be joined by poll-topping allies from the Czech Republic and Austria in an attempt to form the new Patriots for Europe.”
The Hungarian leader is considered Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has opposed weapons shipments to Ukraine and has called for peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
Herbert Kickl, whose Freedom party (Austria) has a history of close ties with the Russian president, made numerous references to “peace” with Russia when announcing the planned political bloc.”