The European Union Rejects Deployment of NATO Troops to Ukraine: The Risk of Direct War with Russia

PARIS – The European Union (EU) rejects the idea of ​​deploying troops NATO the Ukraine. The reason being, it would be a direct war between the Western alliance and Russia.

“Sending ground troops to Ukraine means being a party to the war, to be at war with Russia, and nobody wants that, neither the European Union nor NATO,” said Director General of the EU Military Staff Vice Admiral Herve Blejean.

“We are not at war with Russia. We support the country that was attacked by Russia,” he told French television channel, LCIwhich was launched Thursday (15/6/2023).

Blejean added that the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive was not the end of the war, regardless of its outcome.

The French admiral’s remarks came after former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen suggested that individual members of the alliance, such as Poland and the Baltic states, should deploy troops to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, however, said last week that there would be no foreign troops on the ground before the end of the armed conflict with Russia.

Despite NATO’s reluctance to deploy troops to Ukraine, volunteers from several alliance countries are already fighting on Kyiv’s side, including the Polish nationals involved in the armed incursion into Russia’s Belgorod Region earlier this month.

Moscow, meanwhile, has long maintained that by supplying Ukraine with heavy weapons and sharing intelligence, NATO countries have made themselves de facto direct participants in the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that NATO is waging war against Moscow and it is ridiculous to claim otherwise.

Last month, the European Union agreed to buy €1 billion ($1.08 billion) worth of artillery shells and missiles for Ukraine.

The United States has also provided more than $100 billion in aid to Kyiv since Russia launched operations in the neighboring country in February 2022.

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