Paris Summit on Ukraine
The French President does not rule out sending western troops to Ukraine because, he says, Russia must lose the war
Ştefan Stoica, 28.02.2024, 14:00
The high-level meeting in Paris organized by the French President Emmanuel Macron was supposed to be just one of the many, over the past two years, focusing on Western support for Ukraine, which is at a critical point in its war of defence against Russia. And it was like that up to a point. The Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, also participated, and the Romanian presidential administration in Bucharest stated that the leaders attending the summit in the French capital had reiterated their firm condemnation of Russia’s actions, expressed their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and reconfirmed the need to keep providing support to Kyiv, both at European and bilateral level.
Nothing unusual, therefore, compared to the already established ritual of conferences on the topic of Ukraine, only that, at the end of the Paris meeting, the host, Emmanuel Macron, said that sending Western troops to the ground in Ukraine should not be ruled out in the future, because the West must make sure it defeats Russia.
“There is no consensus today that ground troops should be deployed in an official, accepted, and endorsed way. But nothing should be ruled out. We will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war”, the French President stressed.
He did not want to give more details about France’s position on this issue, citing what he called a “strategic ambiguity”, which he assumed. But he continued the idea: “Many people who say ‘never’ today are the same people who said ‘never tanks, never planes, never long-range missiles’ two years ago. Let us have the modesty to note that we are often six to 12 months late. This was the purpose of tonight’s discussion: everything is possible if it helps us fulfil our objective”. The French president announced that Ukraine’s allies would create a coalition to supply Ukraine with medium- and long-range missiles. Apparently scared by the impact of Macron’s statements, NATO and the European Union have hurried into denying any intention to send troops to Ukraine.
Representatives of the main Western organizations have stated that Ukraine does receive military aid from these organizations and member countries, but there are no plans to send troops to the front in Ukraine. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has also ruled out the possibility of EU and NATO member countries sending ground troops to Ukraine. He has stated that Germany is the European country that supports Ukraine the most and will remain so, without becoming, however, a party to the conflict, directly or indirectly. In turn, the British government has said it has no plans to deploy troops to Ukraine, apart from a small number of advisers who are there to support the Ukrainian military. Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have also ruled out any intention to send combat troops to the front. In Moscow, the spokesperson for the presidency has warned that deploying military personnel from NATO member states to Ukraine would mean a conflict between Russia and the Alliance. (MI)
