Western combat boots on the ground would lead to further escalation, Foreign Secretary Davis Cameron said.
Sending NATO soldiers to fight the Russian army in Ukraine would be too dangerous, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said on Friday. He made the comments as European leaders reignited debate over whether the U.S.-led alliance should consider more direct involvement in the conflict.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, Cameron said the UK must continue to supply weapons to kyiv and focus on replenishing its own stocks. “as a national priority”.
“But I would not have NATO troops in the country because I think it could be a dangerous escalation,” he added. added the Prime Minister. “We have trained – I think – almost 60,000 Ukrainian soldiers. »
The foreign minister’s statement comes after French President Emmanuel Macron once again refused to rule out a possible deployment of NATO soldiers to Ukraine. “We should not exclude anything, because our goal is that Russia can never win in Ukraine.” he told The Economist in an interview published this week. Macron argued that the question of NATO troops on the ground could arise “if the Russians managed to break through the front lines” and whether kyiv would ask for help.
Other high-ranking European officials have floated the idea of troop deployment, with some suggesting NATO could send mine clearance teams and other non-combat personnel. “The presence of NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters this in March.
However, some NATO countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, have spoken out strongly against further escalation. “If a NATO member commits ground troops, it will be a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia and it will then be World War III,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told the channel on Thursday. French LCI.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would be forced to attack Western troops if they took part in the conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Friday: “there will be nothing left” NATO forces if they are sent to the front line in Ukraine.
kyiv has sounded the alarm over delays in Western military aid in recent months, blaming ammunition shortages for battlefield losses. In an interview published Thursday in The Economist, Vadim Skibitsky, deputy director of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR, said Ukraine’s defenses could collapse even with additional aid packages recently approved by the United States and the United Kingdom.
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