Did you hear the one about President Macron’s incipient plan to rendezvous with Red China’s foreign policy mandarin, Wang Yi, to try to douse the flames in Ukraine by summer’s end? In France, the sound of Monsieur Macron’s plummeting poll numbers have mostly drowned that out — and prompted his archrival, Marine Le Pen, to politely suggest he resign. 

In the meantime, Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, has dropped an icy nein bomb on the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO any time soon. 

That’s not all. The two most important countries in the faltering European Union are at so many crosscurrents with respect to support for the necessary defense of Ukraine that it is undercutting progress on the ground. Different political outlooks are par for the course for two nations that have been among history’s most notorious sparring partners, but a lack of consensus on seemingly prosaic issues could inadvertently tilt the map in Moscow’s favor. 

One need not be Henry Kissinger or Carl von Clausewitz to know that soldiers need good maps. So why would France reject Kyiv’s request to provide it with special digital maps of neighboring Belarus that would allow combat aircraft or drones to carry out low-altitude missions more effectively?

These Digital Terrain Elevation Data maps delineate not only terrain but also obstacles such as high-voltage lines, wind turbines, and military equipment like radar installations and anti-aircraft batteries that could prove hazardous or deadly for aircraft. An unnamed French military source told the newspaper Le Monde that the maps “integrate all the tactical data necessary for penetration at very low altitude, at night or with poor visibility.”

Is France the only country that possesses the relevant DTED maps? Probably not. Also, there are indications that Ukraine sought them elsewhere before approaching Paris. Yet why would the French turn down what seems like a fairly innocuous request? The reason has less to do with availability than that France has conditioned its support for Ukraine on not being party to operations on any foreign soil outside of Ukraine itself. 

Yet by standing on ceremony, France may be underestimating the threats emanating from Ukraine’s servile neighbor. The Belarussian strongman, Alexander Lukashenko, is of course bosom buddies with President Putin. Belarus was a staging ground for the Russian invasion more than a year ago, and Russia has latterly threatened to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to much unloved Belarus. 

In the meantime, France’s most significant European other — Germany — has just given the green light for Ukraine to do what it has already been widely acknowledged to have been doing for months now,  namely undertaking limited counteroffensive operations inside Russia itself. Mr. Pistorius clarified to German media that he would exclude from Germany’s approbation the targeting of civilians. 

On both the diplomatic and tactical tracks it seems that France and Germany remain miles apart. Ukraine, not unlike certain other countries like Israel that find themselves in turbulent neighborhoods, will do what it has to do to defend itself. For Kyiv as well as some at Washington, though, the mounting divergence between key allies is vexing. 

It is all the more so given that the broader strategic decisions take place within the framework of NATO — or do they? Mr. Macron has described NATO as “becoming brain-dead.” 

There is no great indication that the manner in which the alliance has been galvanized and enlarged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has modified his thinking much. Part of him no doubt views NATO as a principally American and British project, and whatever pretensions to the contrary Monsieur Macron is usually about putting France — or himself, his opponents would charge  —  first. 

The propensity to do so belies the French leader’s grandstanding about Europe’s so-called strategic autonomy. Where is that, when France and Germany cannot seem to agree on some of the basic logistics of keeping a belligerent Kremlin at bay? 

Of course, when Russia does something as stupid as bomb one of its own cities, as it did at Belgorod yesterday, Brussels and Paris can have a bit of a  break and a laugh at Moscow’s expense. But that is just a break in the battle, and no one in Ukraine can pretend this mess will end simply because Mr. Macron wants to steer things his way. 

Had there been genuine strategic alignment between Paris and Berlin from the beginning, would we even be here now? Even Viktor Orbán, who is no great friend of Kyiv, let helicopters donated by Croatia fly over Hungarian airspace to get to Ukraine.