Europeans may send troops to Ukraine, says Macron
PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron opened the door on Monday to European nations sending troops to Ukraine and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico revealed that there were countries ready to send forces to fight on the side of Kyiv.
While Macron cautioned that there was no consensus at this stage for Western allies to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, the Kremlin warned that conflict between Russia and the US-led Nato military alliance would become inevitable if European troops became directly involved in the fighting.
Some 20 European leaders gathered in Paris on Monday to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a message of European resolve on Ukraine and counter the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is bound to win a war now in its third year.
“There is no consensus at this stage … to send troops on the ground,” Macron told reporters. “Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win.”
Fico, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine, said several Nato and EU members were considering sending soldiers to Ukraine on a bilateral basis.
‘Confirmation’
“I can confirm there are countries that are prepared to send their own troops to Ukraine, there are countries that say never, among which Slovakia belongs, and there are countries that say this proposal needs to be considered,” he said before boarding his plane home.
Asked about Macron’s remarks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that if it came to pass that Nato member troops did fight in Ukraine then talk would have to change to the inevitability of a Nato-Russia conflict.
“The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from Nato countries is a very important new element,” Peskov told reporters.
No plansA White House official told Reuters that the United States had no plans to send troops to fight in Ukraine and that there were also no plans to send Nato troops to fight on Kyiv’s side.
Macron raised the issue of sending troops to Ukraine as he hosted his European counterparts at the Elysee palace for a hastily arranged meeting to discuss how to ramp up ammunition supplies to Kyiv amid what his advisers say is an escalation in Russian aggression over the past few weeks.
After initial successes in pushing back the Russian army, Ukraine has suffered setbacks on eastern battlefields, with its generals complaining of shortages of arms and soldiers.
Zelenskyy backingDutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who is the frontrunner to become the next secretary general of Nato, told reporters the issue of sending troops was not the focus of Monday’s talks.
Addressing the leaders via videolink, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy backed Macron’s warning about an escalation of the conflict: “We must ensure that Putin cannot destroy our achievements and cannot expand his aggression to other nations.”
Macron said: “Many people who say ‘Never, never’ today were the same people who said ‘never tanks, never planes, never long-range missiles’ two years ago
“Let us have the humility to note that we have often been six to 12 months late. This was the objective of this evening’s discussion: everything is possible if it is useful to achieve our objective,” he said, adding that Europe should not depend on the United States to fight in Ukraine.
There was progress on a Czech-led initiative to buy hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds from third countries, something that France has been cautious about.
