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No plans by Poland to send troops to Ukraine for any purpose — senior defense official

Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated that he highly appreciated French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative about deploying troops to Ukraine

MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. Warsaw has no plans to send troops to Ukraine, even to train Ukrainian service members, Stanislaw Wziatek, undersecretary of state at the Polish Defense Ministry, said.

"We don’t plan for our soldiers to take part in the war because the presence of Polish troops in Ukraine, even if it’s for training purposes, would border on participation in the war," he told Polskie Radio.

Earlier, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated that he highly appreciated French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative about deploying troops to Ukraine. However, the Polish Defense Ministry has repeatedly said that Warsaw has no intention of sending troops to Ukraine.

Macron said on February 26 that some 20 Western countries taking part in a recent Paris meeting on further assistance for Kiev had discussed the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine. According to the French leader, no consensus was reached on the issue but such a possibility cannot be ruled out in the future.

After the meeting, most of the countries that took part in it stated that they had no plans to send troops to Ukraine and oppose the idea of direct involvement in military operations against Russia. French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne specified on February 27 that providing certain kinds of assistance to Ukraine, particularly in terms of mine clearance and troop training, might require a Western military presence in the country, but that did not mean such troops would be involved in the conflict.