That weekend started with a fiery exchange between United States President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It ended in less attention-grabbing terms on Sunday with the London defense summit, called by U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

France's Ambassador to Estonia, H.E. Emmanuel Mignot, told ETV foreign affairs show "Välisilm" that his country has both learned lessons from the failed Minsk agreements. He also said that Europe now needs to define security guarantees via a military presence in Ukraine.

The ambassador stressed that Friday's uncomfortable scenes certainly do not mean that the long-standing partnership between the U.S. and France and the U.K., or the U.S. and Europe generally, is now over.

However, recent events have shown that rendering the entire continent dependent on one country was not a good idea. Now we need to get rid of this dependence quickly.

"It means that Europeans must do more, and quickly. That means more for their own security and defense," the ambassador said.
"There comes the European council on Thursday, which will be very important. On that point, Estonia and France are on the same line. It means that we need to find more resources for defense and security."

"The lessons from Minsk have been learned, and these lessons tell us today that to have a lasting and strong peace we need to have a Ukraine which is able to defend its own country. That's the first thing. And for that, it needs to be helped by other nations – and what Europeans are proposing; what President Macron, Prime Minister Starmer are proposing, is to define security guarantees which would take the form of military presence in Ukraine, to guarantee the peace," he went on.

Media reports Monday had it that France and Britain have now taken a lead in Europe with Germany somewhat sidelined.

According to Ambassador Mignot, there is little point in speculating on which country might or might not be the leading country in Europe. The future of the continent certainly does not depend on the leadership of just two countries.

He said: "It's a collective effort. The meeting in London will be followed by another meeting on Thursday in Brussels, so there will be several meetings."

"Also, when the French minister of defense was in Tallinn last Monday, he chaired with [Estonian Defense] Minister [Hanno] Pevkur a meeting with a large group of European ministers. This was very interesting in bringing ideas on how we could ensure the security of Ukraine, and what we need to do concretely on the security of Ukraine."

A different future for Europe will cost every European in a literal sense, so it is a painful but necessary effort. Boosting defense spending had been on the table for several years in France already, the ambassador noted.

"In France, President Macron started already in 2017, so before the Ukraine war, spending more on defense. Between the first mandate of President Macron and the end of the second mandate, defense spending will have doubled. So we are now for 2025 at €50 billion for defense – that means that we have already financed new capacities that we can deploy here in Estonia, for example," he continued.

"We have a new type of equipment here in Tapa which is coming from this financial effort."

Ambassador Mignot also stressed the importance of protecting Europe from Russian propaganda and misinformation, including on social media. This should be done without creating a European social media platform, though he added this need not stretch as far as creating a European social media channel distinct from the main existing U.S. ones.

Following the London summit, European Council President Antonio Costa announced a special meeting of European leaders to take place this Thursday.

The failed Minsk agreements attempted to resolve the "shadow war" Russia began in Donbas, which turned out to be a precursor to the full-scale invasion from February 2022.

The irony that the U.S., as the 13 colonies, would not likely have attained its independence from Great Britain without French aid, and particularly from the French Navy, has remained in the air.

France is the only EU nuclear power and originally developed nuclear weapons in 1960, eight years after the U.K. In France's case, the impetus came not least from the fact that one can draw a line on a map from Paris to Moscow and not cross any major natural barriers beyond rivers.

In the mid-1960s, France left the NATO integrated military command structure but not the entire alliance, ostensibly in order to get more leeway in dealing with its own defense issues. NATO headquarters had originally been in Paris but were relocated to Brussels after this. Then President Nicolas Sarkozy reinstated France into the unified command in 2009.

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