Jean-Louis Bourlanges, chairman of the French parliament's foreign affairs committee, called on Paris to lift the taboo on Ukraine's strikes on Russian territory with French weapons.
According to Le Figaro, Bourlanges wrote a letter to the French leadership, calling for the abandonment of “restraint and a decision” following the example of Britain, which allowed Ukrainian troops to use its weapons against Russia.
“The time seems to have come... The right to self-defense excludes the right to inviolability of the aggressor's territory,” he emphasized, adding that the change in the doctrine would be completely legal, as it would put an end to the asymmetry between the aggressor and the victim.
At the same time, Bourlanges emphasized that neither France nor other Western partners of Ukraine want to go to war with Russia.
“Therefore, it is not about them intervening in the theater of war, but about removing an unjustified taboo,” he wrote in his letter.
Strikes by Western weapons against Russia
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine has been restricted in its right to use weapons received from Western countries to strike Russian territory. Usually, this restriction was explained in the West by the fact that they were giving Ukraine weapons to defend itself against Russia, not to attack it.
This year, however, there have been some developments in this regard. For example, after his visit to Kyiv, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine has the right to strike at Russian territory with British weapons.
At the same time, the United States still adheres to its policy of restricting Ukraine's strikes against Russia. However, during a visit to Kyiv in May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukraine chooses how to wage war, but the US does not encourage strikes against Russia.