BERLIN, March 20. /TASS/. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski called the presence of troops from some Western countries on Ukrainian territory an open secret.
"As your chancellor [Olaf Scholz] said, there are already some units from major countries in Ukraine," he said in an interview with the German agency DPA. "In Poland, we have something we call 'Tajemnica Poliszynela' (an open secret), which describes a secret that everyone knows about," Sikorski added.
On February 26, Scholz explained the reason for refusing to supply Taurus missiles to Kiev, stating that "what is done for missile flight control and target tracking by the British and French cannot be done in Germany." Many politicians interpreted his words to mean that Western military specialists are already present in Ukraine.
Sikorski, for his part, stated that Poland will not send its troops to Ukraine. "Ukraine and Poland were one country for 400 years. This would give the Russians a softball target for propaganda. So, we should be the last to do it," he claimed.
On February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that during a meeting in Paris where representatives of around 20 Western states discussed further support for Kiev in the conflict with Moscow, the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine was raised. According to the French leader, participants did not reach a consensus on this issue, but such a scenario cannot be ruled out in the future. He later clarified his statement, explaining that "not ruling something out does not mean doing it." After the conference, representatives of most participating countries stated that they do not plan to send troops to Ukraine and are against their involvement in combat actions against Russia.