French President Emmanuel Macron has once again said NATO should not rule out sending troops to Ukraine despite the risk of direct war with Russia, which could quickly turn nuclear.
Macron sparked an uproar when he first made the comments about NATO troops deploying to Ukraine last month and has defended the bellicose rhetoric each time he’s been asked about it.
In an interview on French national television, Macron said NATO was not in the “situation” to send troops to Ukraine today but said that “all these options are possible.”
The talk of sending Western troops to Ukraine has put more attention on the fact that there is already a small number of NATO special operations forces inside Ukraine. The Discord leaks revealed last year that 97 NATO special operators were in Ukraine, including 15 French soldiers.
But what Macron appears to be considering would be a larger public deployment, something Moscow has warned would make a direct Russia-NATO war inevitable.
In the TV interview, Macron claimed that the war in Ukraine was “existential” for Europe and said that “if the situation should deteriorate, we would be ready to make sure that Russia never wins that war.”
The French leader criticized NATO countries for previously ruling out weapons systems for Ukraine that were later sent. “Two years ago we said we would never send tanks. We did. Two years ago, we said we would never send medium-range missiles. We did,” he said. “Those who say ‘let’s not support Ukraine’ do not make the choice of peace, they make the choice of defeat.”
Source: AntiWar.
