If Russian president Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine in 2022, is not stopped, "he will certainly go to Moldova and perhaps further, to Romania," French president Emmanuel Macron warned in an interview with several French newspapers quoted by Le Monde.

The statement came after the disagreement between US president Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, which ended with the mineral-for-security agreement not being sealed, and on the eve of an emergency security summit of EU states and UK in London.

Macron proposed the "Europenisation" of their nuclear shield – a strategic dialogue with European countries that do not have nuclear weapons. France and Britain are the only European countries with a nuclear arsenal.

"We have a shield, they don't. And they can no longer depend on the American nuclear deterrent. We need a strategic dialogue with those who don't have it, and that would make France stronger," Macron told Le Parisien newspaper.

He also told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper it would take between five and 10 years to build up an autonomous European defense independent of NATO.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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