MOSCOW, March 10 – France is creating an alliance of countries ready to send Western troops to Ukraine to help the country in areas like demining, Sputnik quoted Politico reports.
The report recalled that French President Emmanuel Macron previously spoke about the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine. However, despite opposition to Macron’s statement from most European Union countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are much more open to the idea, the report said.
Following a Paris-hosted conference on Ukraine on Feb 26, Macron said Western leaders had discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and, although no consensus had been reached in this regard, nothing could be ruled out.
At the same time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defence Minister Boris Pistorius responded by saying that Berlin would not send its forces to Ukraine. The chancellor also said NATO had no such intention either.
Macron’s statement also made him a target of criticism from the opposition at home, with parties on both sides of the political spectrum accusing him of trying to drag France into an armed conflict.
The French president said, responding to criticism, that his every word about sending troops to Ukraine was “weighted, thought through and measured”. Later, Macron added that “not ruling something out does not mean doing it”.
