“Putin is indeed the aggressor”: Sébastien Chenu clarifies the position of the RN after Marine Le Pen’s proposal to cut aid to Ukraine

The National Rally has come under heavy fire from criticism since Marine Le Pen announced on Wednesday her intention to “cut off the tap” on aid to Ukraine six months after her election, if she were to win the presidential election.

Raphaël Glucksmann thus spoke of a “capitulation”, Édouard Philippe of a “betrayal”, when Gabriel Attal accuses him of wanting to “let the Ukrainians be killed”.

“Excessive reactions coming from people who have done nothing to take peace initiatives”, criticized Sébastien Chenu, vice-president of the RN, on LCI this Friday.

“The only solution, when we don’t want war, is to prepare for peace,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll never get out of this.”

The Northern MP assures that his party never wanted “Russia’s victory” in the Ukrainian conflict, and considers Vladimir Putin to be “the aggressor in this story”.

“We condemn them, we demand that there be sanctions – there have been some – calibrated so that the French do not pay the consequences,” he continues.

He swears that the RN only works for “peace”, a peace which would be “in the interest of Ukraine”, but also “for Europe, so that we find serenity, and so that the impacts and economic consequences of the decisions taken so far no longer affect the French”.

For Sébastien Chenu, acting in the interest of the French and of France means recognizing that the country does not have “the necessary money” to continue aid to Ukraine, estimated at “6 billion euros per year”.

These “bloodless” public finances are, again according to the vice-president of the RN, the “legacy” of Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, who “then give lessons”.

The 6 billion euros in question are, however, “exactly what we need to try to redress the imbalances left” by the Macronists, affirms Sébastien Chenu.

“Our economy will end up collapsing, and we will no longer be able to help anyone. The question of aid to Ukraine will no longer arise.”

The vice-president of the National Rally also criticized the “condescension” according to him of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who estimated that by wanting to cut aid to Ukraine, Marine Le Pen “does not have a good handle on certain details”.

“Mr. Zelensky should not show this condescension, especially since Marine Le Pen does not take him as a traitor,” defended the Northern MP on LCI, recalling that the candidate had promised to maintain “training, humanitarian aid, material aid” for six months.

“Mr. Zelensky, I imagine he wants peace too?”, he pretended to question, accusing Emmanuel Macron of not having “taken initiative for a very, very long time”, in favor of peace.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Marine Le Pen spoke through the media on Thursday, the first believing that France “can only gain” from this “cooperation”, particularly in terms of weapons technologies.

“We give in return,” he pleaded, estimating that “Madame Le Pen does not have a good handle on certain details” when she announced that she would cut France’s financial aid to Ukraine six months after her election.

“It’s a kind of emotional blackmail that Volodymyr Zelensky is doing (...), he’s giving us a great lesson in patriotism which is quite astonishing,” accused RN MP Laure Lavalette on franceinfo.