No plans to send Western troops to Ukraine – Scholz   

The German chancellor has commented after French President Emmanuel Macron said the deployment of soldiers cannot be ruled out  

Western troops will not be deployed to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted, after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that this possibility cannot be ruled out. According to Scholz, it was clear from a meeting in Paris on Monday that fellow European leaders have no appetite to send soldiers to support Kiev.   

Speaking at a press conference following a gathering of Kiev’s backers in the French capital on Monday, Macron had stated that “we cannot exclude anything,” despite there being “no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground [to Ukraine].” He further argued that a Russian victory in the conflict would be a major blow for European collective security. That assessment was later echoed by French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.   

Speaking to reporters in Freiburg on Tuesday, Scholz stressed there will be “no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil, who are sent there by European or NATO countries” in the future.  

He also pointed out that active-duty Western military personnel are currently prohibited from taking part in the Ukraine conflict.   

According to Scholz, the leaders who met in Paris on Monday were “unanimous as far as this question is concerned.”    

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Responding on Tuesday to Macron’s statements, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that “in this case, we have to talk not about the probability, but rather the inevitability [of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia],” if Western military personnel end up in Ukraine.       

Meanwhile, the US-led military bloc’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, hastened to emphasize that “there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine.”    

Similarly, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk clarified that his country “does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine,” with his Czech counterpart, Petr Fiala, also expressing skepticism over the need for such a deployment.   

Reuters quoted an unnamed White House official as saying on Monday that Washington has no such plans either.