Kremlin Warns Against NATO Ground Intervention in
Ukraine
The warning came in response to comments by President
Emmanuel Macron of France, who said “nothing should be ruled out” when asked
about the possibility.
Paul Sonne Constant
Méheut
By Paul
Sonne and Constant Méheut
Feb. 27,
2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/27/world/europe/russia-nato-france-macron.html
A
provocative comment by President Emmanuel Macron of France about the
possibility of putting troops from NATO countries in Ukraine has prompted a
warning from the Kremlin and hurried efforts by European leaders to distance
themselves from the suggestion.
The
fractured messaging underscores how Ukraine’s allies are struggling to agree on
new ways to help Kyiv as resolve weakens in the United States and Russia
advances on the battlefield.
The Kremlin
warned Tuesday that a ground intervention by any NATO country would lead to a
direct clash between the Western military alliance and Russian forces, fraught
with potential dangers, and called the open discussion of such a step as “a
very important new element.”
“This is of
course not in the interest of these countries,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin
spokesman, said in comments to reporters.
The warning
came a day after Mr. Macron said “nothing should be ruled out” regarding the
possibility of a NATO country sending troops to Ukraine, though he said there
was no consensus on the matter.
“Anything
is possible if it is useful to reach our goal,” Mr. Macron said, speaking after
a meeting with European leaders in Paris about future support for Kyiv.
Reminding leaders that the West was doing things it didn’t imagine two years
ago, like sending sophisticated missiles and tanks, he said the goal was to
ensure “Russia cannot win this war.”
Poland,
Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic rushed to emphasize they
were not considering putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. NATO chief Jens
Stoltenberg also told The Associated Press the alliance itself had no such
plans.
France
clarified that Mr. Macron was trying to emphasize how Europe must consider new
actions to support Ukraine.
The French
foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, said new assistance to Ukraine in the
areas of mine clearance, cyberdefense and weapons production “could require a
presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting.”
The back
and forth highlighted how NATO, despite becoming more powerful with the
approval of Finland and Sweden as new members, has found itself grasping for
solutions in Ukraine.
Western
nations have a number of options short of inserting ground troops into the
conflict zone. Ukraine has asked for more fighter jets, long-range missiles,
ammunition and air defenses, as its troops fend off a Russian advance that led
Kyiv to retreat from the city of Avdiivka this month.
Acrimonious
exchanges between Russia and the West have become commonplace during the
two-year war. The Kremlin has often responded to Western actions with
provocative threats of confrontation, including regularly reminding its
adversaries of its nuclear arsenal. But despite those bellicose warnings, it
has refrained from conducting strikes against Ukraine’s Western allies,
including sites involved in providing weapons to Ukraine.
The
discussion of a possible ground intervention in Ukraine by a NATO member
country — seen as unlikely by most analysts — overshadowed more pressing
questions about deficits in materiel that Ukraine is experiencing at the front.
Europe’s withered defense industry is struggling to make good on existing
ammunition pledges, let alone make up for the United States.
The
European Union has acknowledged that it will miss its target of providing one
million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine by March 1. Mr. Macron said on Monday
that “it was probably an unwise commitment,” noting that Europe does not have
sufficient stocks or production capacity to meet this target.
“Talking
about possible deployments by NATO member countries to Ukraine is a bit of a
red herring,” said Andrew S. Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. “The really decisive question is what can
the Europeans do to compensate for the lack of U.S. military support.”
Mr. Macron
on Monday said that he was open to European nations purchasing ammunition for
Ukraine from places outside the European Union. The Czech Republic has been
pushing for those purchases to help with immediate shortages, as Republicans in
Congress hold up the provision of new military aid from the United States.
“The
Europeans have had two years now to get their act together and mobilize their
industrial base,” Mr. Weiss said. “Everything else is just a bright shiny
object to distract from that shortcoming.”
Since
Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the United
States and most of its European allies have categorically ruled out the
possibility of a direct intervention by NATO troops in the conflict, warning
that such a step could escalate into nuclear war.
President
Biden openly said U.S. troops would not be deployed to Ukraine in the weeks
before the invasion and he has reiterated that position in the days since. On
Tuesday, a White House spokesman, John Kirby, added, “President Biden has been
crystal clear since the beginning of this conflict: There would be no U.S
troops on the ground in a combat role there.”
The
question of a NATO country putting troops on the ground initially received
renewed attention on Monday, ahead of the Paris summit, when the
Kremlin-friendly prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, said other countries
in the NATO alliance were discussing bilateral deals to insert ground forces in
Ukraine — a step he said Slovakia would not take.
Mr. Macron
made his comments later in the day, calling Moscow’s defeat “indispensable” for
European security. He declined to say which nations might consider sending
ground troops, arguing that “strategic ambiguity” was necessary to keep Russia
guessing.
But the
quick denial by his fellow European leaders led to confusion about the unity of
the alliance and questions about whether his comments amounted to an empty
threat.
“One thing
is clear: there will be no ground troops from European states of NATO” in
Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X, the social platform formerly
known as Twitter.
Speaking at
a news conference in Prague, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Czech
counterpart, Petr Fialia, also said they were not considering the option.
Sweden, which on Monday cleared its last hurdle to becoming a NATO member, also
ruled out sending ground troops. So did Spain.
A European
military official with knowledge of the Paris talks said that “some Nordic and
Baltic countries” had supported the option of sending troops to Ukraine. The
official, who did not identify the countries, spoke on condition of anonymity.
And Kestutis Budrys, a national security adviser to the Lithuanian president,
said his country was considering the deployment of military personnel to train
Ukrainian troops, according to local news reports.
The Kremlin
spokesman, Mr. Peskov, noted the “rich array of opinions on this topic” within
the Western alliance and the lack of a consensus on the matter.
“A whole
host of participants in this event in Paris retain a sufficiently sober
assessment of the potential dangers of such actions and the potential dangers
of direct involvement in a hot conflict — involvement on the battlefield,” Mr.
Peskov said.
Still, Mr.
Peskov said the fact that a direct intervention of NATO troops on the ground
was being discussed “is of course a very important new element” that was
noticed by the Kremlin.
David E.
Sanger and Erica Green contributed reporting.
Paul Sonne
is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of
President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on
the war against Ukraine. More about Paul Sonne
Constant
Méheut has covered France from the Paris bureau of The Times since 2020. More about Constant Méheut
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário