File photo of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
NATO on Tuesday categorically denied any plans to send troops to Ukraine, a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said that while “there’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground, but in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out.”
There are “no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine”, NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. The categorical denial came on the heels of a clear warning by Russia that any such move would inevitably lead to a “direct conflict” with Moscow.
Any move to deploy troops in Ukraine is “absolutely not in the interests” of European members of NATO, asserted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, warning that “in that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability of direct conflict.”
President Macron’s remarks were amplified by his Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who on Tuesday said that “You can’t rule anything out in a war.”
The French leader’s words at a meeting of European leaders in Paris on Monday came at time when American support for Ukraine is seen as waning, with an aid bill worth over 65 billion USD stalled in the US Congress. The EU has agreed to provide Ukraine another 50 billion euros, but even that too appears unlikely to reach Ukraine before the year end. Ukraine has said that the delays in Western aid is directly responsible for the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory.
But while denying plans to put NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine, Stoltenberg reiterated that “this is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, blatantly violating international law,( and) according to international law, Ukraine has the right to self-defence, and we have the right to support them in upholding that right.”
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