France does not plan to send its troops to Ukraine in the "near future", French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview with the news portal Novinky.cz and the newspaper Právo before his visit to Prague on 4 March.
Macron's statement comes in response to a flood of international reactions triggered by one of his remarks on the war in Ukraine during a meeting with 26 heads of state in Paris last week. "In response to a question about sending troops, I said that nothing is excluded," Macron recalled.
However, the French President clarified, "This does not mean that we are considering sending French troops to Ukraine in the near future, but that we are opening the debate and thinking about everything that can be done to support Ukraine, especially on Ukrainian territory."
According to Macron, the participants of the meeting in Paris agreed on five areas in which they want to do more: cyber defense, joint production of military equipment in Ukraine, security of countries directly threatened by the Russian offensive in Ukraine, especially Moldova, the ability to support Ukraine on its border with Belarus, and demining operations.
"Moreover, I have always been clear about our framework: we are not at war against the Russian people, and we refuse to enter into a logic of escalation," Macron emphasized.
Following Macron's statement, Sweden, Poland, and the Czech Republic have ruled out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine, which was followed by similar statements from other countries, including Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary.
Meanwhile, Dutch, Estonian, and Lithuanian officials do not exclude the possibility of sending the military to Ukraine if certain conditions are met.
Read also:
- Canada open to sending non-combat troops to Ukraine as instructors; more countries support non-combat missions (updated)
- Military: Russian troops stationed in Modova’s Transnistria pose no threat
- ISW warns against Russian false interest in Ukraine peace talks, as China, Türkiye pursue their negotiation platforms
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