At a conference on Ukraine in Paris at the end of February 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. The announcement wasn’t taken well across the Rhine. A few hours later, Germany’s Olaf Scholz answered “Europe and NATO will not send any soldiers to Ukraine.” Macron’s statement was “a red line for Germany”, which fears being passed off as “warmonger” in the eyes of Vladimir Putin, according to Dr Carolyn Moser, director of a research group at Heidelberg’s Max Planck Institute of International Law and holder of the Alfred Grosser Chair at S…