MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. The possible decision to send ground troops to Ukraine by NATO countries could be interpreted as the alliance’s direct participation in hostilities and even as a declaration of war, Konstantin Kosachev, the deputy speaker of the Federation Council, said following a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron, who stated after a meeting of European leaders in Paris that such a scenario had been discussed, but the participants failed to reach a consensus.

"This is a point where not just NATO's participation in the war begins (it started a long time ago), but can be interpreted as the alliance’s direct involvement in hostilities, or even as a declaration of war," Kosachev said on his Telegram channel.

He described the French leader's logic as dangerous: those who deny the possibility of sending Western ground troops to the conflict zone today once denied the possibility of supplying tanks, airplanes and long-range missiles.

"This logic is not just faulty, but dangerous and fraught with a catastrophic scenario. Which, as we can see ever more often, some Western leaders absolutely do not understand. The tactic of "slowly boiling a frog" by no means "persuades" Russia that it can accept anything, provided it is done gradually," Kosachev said.

He pointed out that competent Western experts knew perfectly well in the past that there was a limit to patience or a so-called red line.

"This is exactly what happened with the expansion of NATO and the beginning of the special military operation, which became simply inevitable at a certain stage. At some point NATO thought that since the Baltic countries were in NATO, Moscow would agree to Ukraine’s role of "Anti-Russia" quite calmly. Russia refused to reconcile itself with the gradual increase of threats to its security and did its utmost to express its position to the Western countries and offer real agreements on the security architecture in the Euro-Atlantic. They turned a deaf ear to this and preferred to ‘boil the frog.’ The same will happen should NATO intervention occur in Ukraine," Kosachev said.

Macron told a news conference following a meeting of the European leaders that there was no consensus on officially sending ground troops to Ukraine today, but he did not rule out such a possibility in the future. He added that Western countries "intend to do whatever is necessary to prevent Russia" from gaining the upper hand in the conflict.