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Military operation in Ukraine

Sending Western forces to Ukraine for combat off the table — French Defense Minister

Sebastien Lecornu noted that French President Emmanuel Macron earlier ruled out France’s involvement in hostilities

PARIS, March 8. /TASS/. The discussion of the option to send Western troops to Ukraine does not involve sending forces for participation in combat action, French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu told BFMTV.

"Various hypotheses were discussed. But we are not talk about troops directly participating in hostilities," he noted.

The minister reminded that French President Emmanuel Macron earlier ruled out France’s involvement in hostilities.

"However, we are examining whether we have done everything we could to support Kiev and if there are paths that we can review. One such path is the military presence for demining and training of Ukrainian soldiers on the Ukrainian territory," Lecornu said.

According to the minister, during the February 26 meeting on assistance for Ukraine in Paris, Western states reached a consensus on a number of issues regarding the aid for Kiev.

"I will provide a specific example: producing and maintaining weapons on Ukrainian territory. This means presence of French and other European weapon makers," Lecornu said, adding that cyber protection of Ukraine was also discussed.

On February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said that at a meeting in Paris, where representatives of about 20 Western countries discussed further support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, the topic of the potential deployment by Western countries of their own ground troops to Ukraine was raised. According to him, the participants did not reach a consensus on this issue, but such a scenario cannot be ruled out in the future. After the conference, representatives of most of the participating countries said that they were not planning to send troops to Ukraine and, moreover, that they opposed their involvement in military hostilities against Russia

Commenting on Macron’s remarks, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov underscored that, if Western troops get sent to Ukraine, a direct conflict between NATO and Russia will become unavoidable. He added that NATO countries must realize this and "ask themselves if this meets their interests, and, most importantly, the interest of their people.".

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