NATO leaders shot down a suggestion by France’s president that Western troops might ultimately combat alongside Ukrainian forces two years into Russia’s ongoing invasion, because the Kremlin warned of a wider battle with the West.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s swiftly punctured trial balloon highlighted fears that Russian advances in Ukraine will embolden Moscow to threaten front-line jap European states − all whereas billions of {dollars} in desperately wanted U.S. help to Kyiv stays stalled within the U.S. Congress.
“There’s no consensus as we speak to ship…troops on the bottom,” French President Emanuel Macron instructed reporters from the presidential palace on Monday. “However by way of dynamics, nothing will be dominated out. We are going to do no matter it takes to make sure that Russia can’t win this conflict.”
Macron wouldn’t say which international locations is perhaps mulling European boots on the Ukrainian floor, citing the necessity for “strategic ambiguity.”
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‘No’ in a number of languages
The place the French president spoke of ambiguity, NATO Secretary-Basic Jens Stoltenberg as a substitute dished readability, telling the Related Press on Tuesday there are “no plans for NATO fight troops on the bottom in Ukraine.”
Different leaders piled on. “There can be no floor troops, no troopers on Ukrainian soil who’re despatched there by European states or NATO states,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz instructed reporters Monday after a gathering of 20 leaders and diplomats hosted by Macron.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland stated Tuesday that his nation’s troops wouldn’t combat in Ukraine, and Czech Republic Prime Minister Petr Fiala stated his nation “definitely doesn’t wish to ship its troopers.”
Whereas making clear that President Joe Biden has dominated out any U.S. forces preventing in Ukraine, Nationwide Safety Council spokesman John Kirby was much less equivocal about European armies. “It is a sovereign determination that each NATO ally must make for themselves,” he stated Tuesday. “There will be no U.S. troops on the bottom in a fight function there.”
And the Kremlin seized on Macron’s feedback to warn of the first-ever fight between Russian and NATO troops. “On this case, we have to speak not about chance, however concerning the inevitability” of direct preventing between Moscow’s forces and people of the Western navy alliance, spokesman Dmitry Peskov instructed reporters.
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US help: From ‘so long as it takes’ to ‘so long as we are able to’
Macron’s remarks got here amid dismal stories from Ukraine, the place troops are struggling to carry off the Russians amid an ammunition scarcity and waning U.S. help.
After 9 months of stalemate, Russian forces lately took management of the jap Ukrainian metropolis of Avdiivka, and Moscow continues to carry almost 20% of Ukrainian territory. In the meantime, a $60 billion U.S. help bundle is stalled by congressional Republicans as polls present GOP voters souring on help and former President Donald Trump pulls the occasion away from Ukraine.
Biden had promised on the 2023 State of the Union deal with to help Kyiv “so long as it takes.” By December, Biden was lowered to telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington would sustain navy help for “so long as we are able to.”
The European Union and particular person member states are scrambling to shore up Kyiv as American resolve weakens. Earlier this month, European leaders pledged $54 billion in financial help, for a complete of $150 billion since Russia’s 2022 invasion.
The U.S., for its half, has despatched $74.3 billion in navy, monetary, and humanitarian help, in keeping with the Council on International Relations.
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Some international locations are ‘prepared’ to ship troops, Slovakian chief says
In remarks on Monday, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who opposes navy help to Ukraine, stated he had heard that some international locations had been contemplating bilateral offers to ship troops.
“There are international locations which might be able to ship their very own troopers to Ukraine, there are international locations that say by no means – Slovakia is amongst them – and there are international locations that say that this proposal needs to be thought of,” Fico stated.
Whereas many Western leaders had been aghast on the French president’s suggestion, it obtained a heat welcome in Kyiv.
“Macron is now demonstrating a deep understanding of the dangers posed to Europe by the conflict in Ukraine,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak instructed the AFP information service on Tuesday. “The French president’s assertion clearly takes the dialogue to a different degree,” he added.
“It is a good signal,” Podolyak stated.
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US is not ‘keen’ to see European troops in Ukraine
Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research, stated Macron was doubtless attempting to sign to the Kremlin that Europe would contemplate all choices within the protection of Ukraine − regardless that the chance of French troops truly preventing Russian forces was minuscule.
Within the occasion French troops ever land in Ukraine, they might in all probability function technical advisors for the superior missile methods that France and different international locations have pledged to their embattled ally, removed from the entrance strains.
And, regardless of Kirby’s diplomatic response to the French president, “I do not assume the U.S. is raring to see any NATO member boots on the bottom,” Bergmann stated. “It might produce further stress on the U.S. to do the identical.
Contributing: Swapna Venugopal, USA TODAY; Related Press