Russia has become a vassal state of China, Macron says

PARIS -- Russia has "already lost geopolitically" its war in Ukraine war and is effectively becoming a vassal state of China, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published Sunday (May 14).

"De facto, it has entered a form of subservience with regards to China and has lost its access to the Baltic, which was critical, because it prompted the decision by Sweden and Finland to join NATO," Macron told the Opinion newspaper.

"This was unthinkable just two years ago. So it's already a geopolitical defeat," Macron said ahead of a visit to Paris by Ukraine's President Volodoymyr Zelensky later Sunday.

"Let's be clear, Russia must not win this war militarily. So it's up to us to see how to help the Ukrainians with their counter-offensive, and how to prepare the issue of security guarantees in the negotiations that will inevitably take place," he said.

"I've always said that in the end, Europe's security architecture will have to fully defend Ukraine. But it must also envisage non-confrontation with Russia and rebuild a sustainable balance of forces," he continued.

"But there are still many steps that must be taken before we get to that," he said.

Finland in April completed its first NATO exercise as an alliance member, as German and Portuguese ships symbolically made port in Helsinki.

Ending decades of military non-alignment, the Nordic country became the 31st member of NATO on April 4.

Finland and neighbouring Sweden announced bids to join NATO in May 2022, in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Finland's entry doubled the border between NATO countries and Russia, as Finland and Russia share a 1,340km border.

The former Soviet Union invaded Finland during World War II and even today the Nordic country of 5.5 million maintains mandatory military service that allows Helsinki to mobilise hundreds of thousands of reserves in the event of war.

Unbalanced relationship

Despite claims of strategic co-operation between Russia and China, relations between the two countries are anything but equal.

"Russian leaders like to emphasise the unprecedented strategic co-operation between the two countries," wrote Alexandra Prokopenko for Carnegie Politika, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's blog on Russia and Eurasia, in March.

"Yet in reality, this co-operation makes Moscow increasingly dependent on Beijing."

"China is content simply to monetise its growing geo-economic leverage over Russia by securing discounts on its hydrocarbon exports and conquering its consumer market," Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Berlin-based Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, wrote in the Economist.

"But it is probably only a matter of time before China demands more political loyalty for its help in keeping Putin's regime afloat."

Losses in Ukraine

Ukraine on Monday welcomed its troops' advances in areas near the frontline town of Bakhmut, the scene of the longest and fiercest fighting since Russia's invasion.

"The advance of our troops in the Bakhmut direction is the first success of the offensive in the course of the operation to defend Bakhmut," said the commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Syrskyi's comments come after the head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group, which is leading the Russian assault on Bakhmut, claimed that regular Russian troops were fleeing the flanks of the town and exposing his forces in its centre.

Yevgeny Prigozhin on May 5 threatened to pull his frontline fighters from Bakhmut, blaming the Russian army for ammo and personnel shortages.