French President Emmanuel Macron has doubled down on the possibility of sending troops into Ukraine, a day before a key summit with Germany, which is staunchly opposed to the idea.

“We cannot exclude options,” Macron said in a joint interview with TF1 and France 2 TV on Thursday, when asked to revisit controversial comments made in late February. At the time, the French leader refused to rule out the prospective deployment of Western troops into Ukrainian territory — resulting in scorn from Russia and a backlash from Macron’s NATO allies.

“What we are doing is giving ourselves red lines,” the French premier continued on Thursday, in comments translated by CNBC, noting that the international community has placed “too many limits in our vocabulary” regarding the war.

“If we decide today to be weak, if, in the face of someone who has no limits, who has crossed all the limits we have given him, if we naively tell him: ‘I will not go farther than this or that.’ In that moment we don’t decide peace, we decide defeat.”

The French leader declined to specify how he envisages a potential troop deployment into Ukraine, stressing instead that “the security of Europe and the security of the French people is at stake here.”

In response to the comments, Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “France is already involved in the conflict in Ukraine and is not averse to increasing its involvement,” according to Google-translated remarks reported by Russian state news agency Tass.

The latest statements by Macron once again risk pitting him against NATO allies, who distanced themselves from the possibility of their own national military deployment in Ukraine in February.

The alliance members face separate pressure to increase their defense spending to a previously agreed target of 2% of their national GDP, with two-thirds of members set to meet this objective this year, according to the latest projections.

“We have the capacity to give Ukraine what it needs. Now we need to show the political will to do so,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed during a press briefing.

NATO member contributions have so far been used to supply ammunition and military equipment and maintenance to Ukraine, rather than sending troops into Ukrainian territory — a move that would position the alliance closer to war with Russia. Foreign volunteers have assisted both Russia and Ukraine in the war so far, but not as part of any formal military deployment.

Macron on Friday is meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin for talks that many hope could silence simmering tensions over Ukraine. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will also join them, in a rare meeting of the Weimar Triangle — a regional coalition between the three countries, born in 1991.

Berlin has fought to shrug off its image as a slow responder to the conflict in Ukraine, after stalling approval to send Kyiv its Leopard-2 tanks. It now faces similar calls to deliver its Taurus missiles, which Scholz says would require the involvement of German soldiers to operate.

In February, Scholz joined the chorus of NATO leaders starkly opposing Macron’s position of potentially sending troops into Ukraine, insisting on social media: “It is clear: there will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO. That applies.”

Tusk, whose country has staunchly backed Ukraine in the war, comes fresh from a White House engagement earlier this week, during which he, Polish President Andrezj Duda and U.S. President Joe Biden committed “continued support of Ukraine’s self-defense against Russia’s war of aggression,” according to a readout.

“True solidarity with Ukraine? Less words, more ammunition,” Tusk said on social media on Friday.

Russia appears to be relishing the gaffe French President Emmanuel Macron made this week in suggesting that NATO countries discussed the possibility of Western ground troops being deployed in Ukraine, saying such an eventuality could not be “ruled out.”

Macron’s suggestion was widely — and very publicly — rejected by NATO member countries Tuesday. The United States, Germany, the U.K., Spain, Poland and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg were among those denying that sending ground troops into Ukraine was an option.

The Kremlin was quick to seize upon the comments Tuesday, warning that any move to put Western boots on the ground in Ukraine would lead to an “inevitable” conflict between NATO and Russia. Since then, state-run Russian media has been dominated by Russian officials relishing the obvious division in NATO, and Macron’s apparent misreading of the NATO mood music.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister, said Macron had suffered a bout of verbal “incontinence” while Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said Macron’s “loud statements … horrified the residents of his country and the leaders of a number of European states.”

“To maintain personal power, Macron came up with nothing better than to spark a third world war. His initiatives are becoming dangerous for French citizens,” Volodin said on Telegram, comparing the French president to French leader and military commander Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Russia in 1812 is widely recognized as a military disaster for France that led to a massive number of casualties.

“Before making such statements, Macron would do well to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in the damp earth,” Volodin said, referring to the muddy conditions that hampered France’s invasion. 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Wednesday that Ukraine is facing a “catastrophic” situation at the front — Russia is currently enjoying a spate of small territorial gains in eastern Ukraine — and that Macron’s statement had not helped the country.

“The situation at the front for the Kyiv regime is monstrous, catastrophic,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station, the Tass news agency reported.

She claimed NATO countries’ denials that they planned to send their ground troops into Ukraine showed the West had “betrayed Ukraine and will continue to use and betray it,” repeating Moscow’s baseless claims that Western countries are using Ukraine to destroy Russia.

Macron’s controversial comments came Monday evening, after he had hosted European heads of state and representatives from the U.K., U.S. and Canada for talks in Paris on how best to help Ukraine.

After the conference, Macron said discussions had also covered the possibility of deploying ground troops, although he said there was no agreement on the issue.

“There is no consensus today to officially, openly, and with endorsement, send troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing should be ruled out,” Macron said at a news conference Monday evening, adding that allies “will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.”

French opposition lawmakers rounded on Macron for making the comments, with the leader of the hard-right National Rally party Marine Le Pen stating on X that by “affirming that sending ground troops was not excluded, Emmanuel Macron took a further step towards co-belligerence.”

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne attempted to ease tensions in France’s parliament on Tuesday without rowing back on Macron’s comments, saying French troops could take on non-combat roles rather than actively battle in Ukraine.

“We must consider new actions to support Ukraine. These must respond to very specific needs, I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyberdefence, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory,” he told lawmakers, Reuters reported.

“Some of its actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting. Nothing should be ruled out. This was and still is the position today of the president of the Republic,” he said.

France was left looking increasingly isolated throughout the day Tuesday, with the White House also distancing itself from Macron’s comments.

U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters yesterday that any decision to deploy ground troops was a “sovereign decision,” but that it was not one the U.S. would be taking in Ukraine.

When asked about Macron’s comments, Kirby said “well, that’s a sovereign decision that every NATO ally would have to make for themselves. You heard [NATO] Secretary General Stoltenberg say himself he had no plans or intentions of — certainly under NATO auspices — of putting troops on the ground. And President Biden has been crystal clear since the beginning of this conflict. There’ll be no U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role there. In Ukraine.”

Russia analysts have said Macron’s comments were a gift to the Kremlin, and would be fully exploited by Russia’s propaganda machine at home — and abroad.

The Elysee Palace sought to clarify and defend France’s position on the matter further Tuesday, with a spokesperson stating that “we want to avoid escalation. Let me remind you that we’re not at war with the Russian people, but we can’t let Russia win in Ukraine.”

Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, was among those questioning “French foreign policy sense on anything to do with Russia/Ukraine.”

“Literally idiotic comments from Macron,” Ash said in emailed comments Tuesday. “Ukraine does not need Western boots on the ground — it needs Western military kit to do the job themselves of defeating Russia.”

Ash said that “talk of Western boots on the ground is so damaging” as “it plays to the Putin narrative of NATO expansion East, and that this is a NATO war with Russia” and “plays up to similar narratives being plied in the Global South,” referring to countries often described as “developing” economies with whom Russia would like to develop ties.

He noted the comments would also likely be “seized on by Putin’s allies in the GOP [the Republican Party] to stall in agreeing military support/financing for Ukraine.”

“What the U.S. public do not want is U.S. boots on the ground in another foreign conflict. But the beauty of Western support for Ukraine thus far is that it has not required Western boots on the ground, but through a modest financial outlay has had a devastating impact on Russian military capability,” Ash said.

Russia is watching very closely as Western nations try to build alliances in what has traditionally been seen as its “backyard” and sphere of influence.

One top official in Moscow was fuming as he claimed the West was “luring” its “neighbours, friends, and allies” away from Russia.

The latest Western leader to court Central Asia is French President Emmanuel Macron. Visiting oil- and mineral-rich Kazakhstan on Wednesday, he complimented the former Soviet state for refusing to side with Moscow against Ukraine.

“I don’t underestimate by any means the geopolitical difficulties, the pressures … that some may be putting on you,” Macron said as he addressed his Kazakh counterpart, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in Astana.

“France values … the path you are following for your country, refusing to be a vassal of any power and seeking to build numerous and balanced relations with different countries,” he said.

Macron visited Uzbekistan on Thursday, with a delegation including business leaders as France looks to forge deeper ties in a region rich in natural resources, from oil and gas to uranium.

The French leader’s comments are likely to have enraged Moscow, which is already watching Western efforts to court Central Asia with suspicion and disdain. CNBC has asked the Kremlin to comment on Macron’s trip and is awaiting a response.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview last week that the West was trying to pull Russia’s “neighbours, friends and allies” away from it.

“Look at how Western powers are wooing Central Asia,” Lavrov told the BelTA news agency, in comments published by Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

“They have created numerous formats such as ‘Central Asia plus’ involving the United States, the EU, and Japan … On top of the Central Asia plus EU format, the Germans have created their own format. The French won’t be wasting time and will do the same,” he said.

“These frameworks for diplomatic engagements are aimed at luring our Central Asian neighbours, friends, and allies towards the West which promises them economic and trade incentives and delivers relatively modest aid programmes.”

Lavrov said alliances with the West could not be “compared with the benefits the Central Asian countries enjoy from cooperating with Russia … in sensitive areas such as border security, law enforcement training, and traditional security.”

He claimed that Western countries were “funneling money and resources into equipment and technology supplied to these regions” in a bid to woo them, adding, “We openly discuss these matters with our Central Asian brothers.”

Mark Galeotti, a London-based political scientist, lecturer and author of several books on Russia, told CNBC Thursday that Macron’s visit to Central Asia would have touched a nerve in Moscow but that Central Asia had increasingly been looking elsewhere, to Europe, China and the United States, for trade and security guarantees.

“Yes, the Russians are grumbling at what they see as Macron’s posturing … but it’s more that this kind of initiative reminds them of the fact that, really, they are losing their authority in Central Asia.”

“There clearly is concern [in Russia at Central Asia’s geopolitical trajectory], but more than anything else, I think the concern is driven by a painful awareness, that, in a way, Central Asia has already been lost,” Galeotti said.

“Essentially, Moscow’s main hold on Central Asia had long been, essentially, as a security guarantor,” he noted, adding that “Russia was the country you went to when you were looking for assistance in security matters.”

“But ever since February of last year [when it invaded Ukraine], we’ve seen a very rapid decline in Russia’s authority in Central Asia.”

The degree to which a sense of “brotherhood” is felt in Central Asia’s leadership toward Russia is debatable.

Central Asian states have to tread a fine line with Moscow, being careful not to alienate or antagonize their powerful neighbor while also trying to forge their own independent international trade and foreign policies with the West and China.

This ambivalent position has often led Central Asian states “sitting on the fence” when it comes to certain geopolitical matters, such as the war in Ukraine.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as well as neighboring Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, were among 35 U.N. members that abstained on a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four mostly Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine last year. Central Asian state Tajikistan was absent from the vote.

Only one of Russia’s neighbors, Belarus — its closest ally in its backyard — was among the five countries to reject the resolution condemning the annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. The other countries were North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria.

Central Asian states have been accused of helping Russia to dodge Western sanctions imposed on it for the invasion of Ukraine, with European and Chinese products exported to Central Asia and then funneled into Russia.

Nonetheless, the war in Ukraine has created the irony that a distracted Russia has lost a degree of power, control and leverage over its own wider “backyard” made up of former Soviet states, stretching from the South Caucasus region — which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — to Central Asia.

Russia has already felt aggrieved to see former Soviet republics incorporated into the West, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and to watch as others like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova head in the same direction. Kyiv’s leaning toward the West over the past 20 years laid the foundation for the conflict we see today, with Russia looking to reassert its power and influence over its neighborhood.

Russia’s “final backstop of authority was the possibility that it could invade or intervene,” Galeotti noted, “but now, with 97% of the Russian army mired in Ukraine, no one’s really worried about that anymore.”

There’s certainly a tussle for influence that’s taking place in Central Asia, with China also “courting” the region to a certain extent.

China held a summit with Central Asian states in early summer, months before U.S. President Joe Biden met with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in September, as part of the first ever presidential summit of the “C5+1” format launched in 2015. The group pledged to expand their economic and security cooperation.

Alexander Titov, lecturer in modern European history at Queen’s University of Belfast, told CNBC that the position of Central Asian states — “squeezed” between Russia to the west, China to the east and Afghanistan to the south — added complexity and nuance to the region’s international relations.

“Central Asian republics have to play their own game in the sense that they are in this region where Russia is an important player, as well as China. China has become a bigger economic presence than Russia in Central Asia,” he noted, particularly when it comes to oil and particularly gas consumption, with China accelerating the construction of a pipeline to source gas from Turkmenistan, despite Russia’s attempts to push its own pipeline proposals with Beijing.

Still, while Russia has been vocally critical of Europe’s and the U.S.’ engagement with Central Asia, it has been ostensibly less so when it comes to its ally China. Analysts say this is based on Moscow’s calculation that China will remain more of a backseat partner in the region, for now at least.

“While there clearly is alignment between Russia and China when it comes to Central Asia, and particularly when it comes to keeping ‘the West’ out of the region after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia is unlikely to relinquish completely its traditional grip on the region, nor is China likely to actively wrestle Moscow for greater control in the near future,” global security analysts Anastassiya Mahon and Stefan Wolff wrote in analysis for the U.K.-based Foreign Policy Centre think tank.

“While there is undoubtedly a rebalancing of power afoot between Russia and China, this is likely to take the form of a gradual power transition.”

The analysts noted that “while the West will hardly be seen as an alternative in such a hegemonic power transition from Russia to China, the transition itself, nevertheless, offers opportunities.”

The U.S., U.K., and EU can strengthen their own engagement and cooperation with Central Asia, they noted, “precisely because this presents the states there with a chance for some re-balancing of their own and for strengthening their traditional aspiration for a multi-vector foreign policy.”

French citizens are heading to the polls Sunday in a presidential election set against the backdrop of war in Ukraine and a cost of living crisis.

The second — and final — round of voting sees centrist incumbent Emmanuel Macron face off against nationalist and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The same pair were also in the final runoff back at the 2017 election, but political commentators believe Le Pen has improved her chances this time around.

“While Macron is likely to get re-elected on Sunday, around 13-15% of voters remain undecided. Therefore, there is still room for surprises,” Antonio Barroso, deputy director of research at consulting firm Teneo, said in a research note Thursday.

Barroso said that one potential path to a Le Pen victory would be if a considerable amount of voters who had opted for hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round, suddenly switched to the radical right instead of staying at home or casting a blank vote.

A poll out Thursday predicted that Macron would win the second round with 55% of the votes, with Le Pen on 45%. This is, however, a smaller margin when compared to the final result of France’s 2017 election. Back then, Macron crushed Le Pen’s party (National Front which has since been rebranded National Rally) with 66.1% of the votes, to 33.9%.

“Opinion polls now give Macron a 55% to 45% edge over Le Pen. In the past five years, polls have not understated support for Le Pen. But, with up to 25% of voters still undecided early this week, we cannot rule out an upset win for Le Pen,” analysts at Berenberg said in a research note Friday, adding that “a lot is at stake for France and the EU.”

Le Pen has softened her rhetoric toward the European Union since 2017. She is no longer campaigning for France to leave the EU and the euro, saying she wants to transform the bloc into an alliance of nations — fundamentally changing the way it works. She also wants French troops to move out of NATO’s military command.

“Le Pen’s narrow ‘France first’ approach and her desire to put her own French rules above EU rules would cause constant strife with the EU, hurt the business climate and scare away foreign investors. France would fall back,” Berenberg analysts said.

They added: “She wants to preserve outdated economic structures through subsidies and regulations. She is toying with the idea of lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60 after 40 or 42 years of work, whereas Macron wants to raise the retirement age to 65.”

The last days of the campaign trail have seen Le Pen’s old links with Russia and President Vladimir Putin resurface. In a key TV debate Wednesday against Macron, Le Pen was accused of being “dependent” on Russia.

Macron told Le Pen during the two-hour talks: “When you speak to Russia, you are speaking to your banker,” according to a translation. Back in 2014, Le Pen’s party reportedly requested loans from Russian banks including from the First Czech Russian Bank — a lender that is said to have links to the Kremlin. Le Pen rebuffed the accusations Wednesday, saying: “I am a completely free women.”

Warwick University Professor of French Politics Jim Shields told CNBC Wednesday that Macron has had the difficult task of defending his five years in office but also presenting a fresh vision for the future.

“Le Pen, this time round, can play the card of change much more than Macron,” he said. “What he has to do is show empathy, come off his high horse, try to show that he cares about people’s everyday concerns, that he’s not the president of the rich that many accuse him of being,” he added, referencing surging inflation in France which has become a pillar of Le Pen’s election campaign.

“Each of the two candidates need to try to correct their perceived weakness. For Le Pen, lack of credibility, for Macron, lack of connectedness, lack of empathy, in order to attract new voters,” Shields said.

If Macron is re-elected he will become the first incumbent in two decades to return for a second term. The yield on the 10-year French government bond has risen in the runup to the election, crossing the 1% threshold at the start of April amid wider concerns on inflation and the war in Ukraine.

Polls are due to close at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET) with early projections on a winner expected shortly afterward.