Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "The Ukraine Conflict (Almost) Guaranteed Macron Wins the Election - TLDR News" video.

The irony is about Orban and the leader of Poland is that what they are so against with Putin is what those two countries are slowly slipping into with becoming an authoritarian government, I wonder if the people in those two countries actually see the risk of what is happening because of the policies of those two leaders and if those policies will change now there's a major wake-up call from Putin. The EU has been hard on these two countries because they were slipping into something like what Russia have now, sooner or later if they kept on that track, the EU would kick them both out, Putin might have saved them from themselves, either way, the EU has been proven right on this, you can't afford to have an authoritarian government with where that could lead and you only need to look at Russia to see the results.
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Will be interest to see the next decade because of Putin's actions in Ukraine, Macron has been vindicated in what the EU really needs to do thanks to Putin and now we are seeing some sizeable shift in policies around Europe as well as from the people, as you say, this could open up the door for more integration, especially on security and military matters. It's all ironic really because I said to my brother a few years ago that Putin, Trump and Brexit are the best friends of the EU and they don't even realize it, them messing up will show the Europeans in the EU why they need to work closer together which is helping the EU out, sometime it's these events that happen that become a major wake-up call.
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Macron has been pushing for more cooperation and integration of the EU, especially on foreign policy matters and on the military, Putin's invasion of Ukraine has been a massive wake-up call for Europeans that they need to work closer together and the EU is the best starting place to do that, for Macron, he's been vindicated here because he's been pushing for the EU to have a bigger role in many areas for years, it took Putin's aggressive behaver to wake people up, I suspect that why it's helping his position in France. At the end of the day, Europeans in the EU need to start standing on their own feet and not keep relying on the US and the EU is the best place to pool their resources together so they are a lot more effective, Putin has handed a gift to Macron and also to pro integrationist around the EU, now the question is, what happens over the next 5 and 10 years because I suspect a lot will happen. Now don't get me wrong, we still have NATO but imagine if we had an EU military, they likely would be willing to be more proactive on Ukraine compared to NATO, that doesn't mean getting involved in the war directly but I suspect the EU could have put 20,000, 40,000 troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers before the war happened, the idea being, it's one thing for Putin to attack Ukraine which is a poor country, it's another to attack them if a powerful neighbour has troops there, that could have been enough to prevent the war from happening as I doubt the EU wants a war braking out on it's doorstep whereas I doubt the US cares what goes on in Ukraine and sees this as an opening to hit Putin where it hurts. Remember that Putin invaded because he thought the EU was weak and divided, he also thought the same about the west, he didn't expect this rallying cry around Ukraine but that might not be enough, sometimes you have to go more forceful with these things and as for NATO, the EU being a military power wouldn't take anything away from it, what it would do is that the EU would become a much bigger player in that with the US. Putin shot a warning shot to Europeans, something we need to listen to because if Russia can do this, imagine what China can do which have an economy and population far bigger than Russia, basically, we need to start working a lot closer together to protect our interest because as friendly as the US might seem to come across, they don't really have European interest at heart, only the EU can do that if we pool our resources together.
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