As of: February 28, 2024, 11:15 a.m
By: Stefan Krieger
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Western troops to support the Ukraine war?
Emmanuel Macron's statement is causing very different reactions at home and abroad.
Berlin – Emmanuel Macron’s initiative caused quite a stir.
Recently, after a Ukraine aid conference, the French president described the use of ground troops in the Ukraine war by his country as not being ruled out.
At the meeting with more than 20 heads of state and government, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), there was no agreement on this, but nothing could be ruled out in the future course of the war, Macron said on Monday evening in Paris.
Scholz rejected Macron's proposal for a possible deployment of ground troops from NATO countries to Ukraine.
Expert: Don't rule out Western troops in Ukraine
However, the former head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, believes a debate about sending Western ground troops to Ukraine is appropriate.
“In such a conflict situation that we find ourselves in with Russia, it is of course correct in principle not to rule anything out.
As soon as you rule out something, you basically make it easier for your opponent to prepare for what might come," the former top diplomat told the
Welt-TV
broadcaster on Tuesday evening .
He found it "a bit bold, but not wrong" that Macron said: "If it continues like this, it's better that we don't rule anything out." But Ischinger also emphasized that on the other hand there is the right principle, that NATO does not want to be drawn militarily into the war between Russia and Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron.
© LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP
Ischinger described it as “deeply regrettable that, in this most serious strategic, military and political crisis in which Europe has found itself in terms of security policy for many years, the Franco-German blessing has gone wrong.” It is the duty of everyone involved to do everything to achieve “joint action in this serious crisis.” Ischinger continued: “If Germany and France present themselves with bickering and disagreement in front of the eyes of the Russians, where will the champagne corks pop?
Not in Washington and not in Italy, but in Moscow.”
SPD rejects debate: Ukraine needs ammunition
The SPD is positioning itself completely differently, and not just the Chancellor.
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag, Michael Roth (SPD), described the debate about sending ground troops to Ukraine as “completely irrelevant”.
“What Ukraine urgently needs at the moment is ammunition, ammunition, ammunition,” Roth said on Wednesday in the
ARD morning magazine
.
He also referred to the necessary means of air defense and armed drones.
Since the situation in Ukraine is “more than threatening,” the debate about ground troops for Ukraine is now discussing something “that is completely irrelevant,” said Roth.
During his visit to Kiev, he “found no minister, no general, no representative of civil society who said anything about ground troops or the deployment of foreign soldiers,” the SPD politician added.
USA emphasizes sovereign decision of third countries
While Macron's proposal was widely rejected in Europe, the White House did not express any general rejection.
The possible deployment of troops to Ukraine is a sovereign decision of third countries, said US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, according to the Russian news agency
TASS
.
However, both the United States and NATO have previously made it clear that they have no such plans.
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Asked what the United States would think about its NATO allies sending troops to Ukraine, Kirby said: “That is a sovereign decision that each NATO ally must make for itself.
You have heard Secretary General Stoltenberg himself say that he has no plans or intentions to station troops on the ground under the auspices of NATO.
And President Joe Biden has been clear since the beginning of this conflict: There will be no U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role in Ukraine.”
“We leave it to President Macron to speak for his military and what he is or is not willing to do with his troops.
The President made his statement clear.
He does not support US troops involved in this conflict in Ukraine.
And I would like to leave it at that,” the White House spokesman added.
(skr with agency material)