Nato ‘may send troops to Ukraine’
Several Nato and EU members were considering sending soldiers to Ukraine on a bilateral basis, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday.
Fico, who has long opposed military supplies to Ukraine and has taken a position seen by some critics as pro-Russian, offered no details and other European leaders did not immediately comment on his remarks. He was speaking before a meeting of European leaders in Paris that he is due to attend later on Monday.
Preparations for the Paris meeting “imply a number of Nato and EU member states are considering that they will send their troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis”, Fico told a televised briefing after a meeting of Slovakia’s security council.
“I cannot say for what purpose and what they should be doing there,” he said, adding that Slovakia, a member of the EU and Nato, would not send soldiers to Ukraine.
Members of Nato have supplied arms and ammunition to Kyiv and are training Ukrainian forces. But Nato leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have underlined that the Western military alliance wanted to avoid a direct conflict with Russia,
“Neither Nato nor Nato allies are party to the conflict,” Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said on February 14.
Nato had no immediate comment on Fico’s remarks.
Asked about the comments, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said: “The Czech Republic certainly is not preparing to send any soldiers to Ukraine, no-one has to worry about that.”
Fico said he saw a risk of a large escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and more information could not be made public.
About 20 European leaders, including Fico, gathered in Paris to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a message of European resolve on Ukraine and to counter the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is bound to win the war now entering its third year, France said.
French President Emmanuel Macron has invited European leaders to the Élysée Palace for a working meeting announced at short notice because of what his advisers say is an escalation in Russian aggression over the past few weeks.