MADRID, March 21. /TASS/. Kiev is asking its European allies not to send troops to Ukraine, but to send military instructors, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal said.
"We are not asking for troops," he told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. "We have our own armed and defense forces, and we have enough troops," he pointed out. "We propose that our European partners send military instructors to Ukraine to speed up this process [of training], as this would facilitate logistics and communication," the prime minister added. "No European country is ready to send soldiers to the battlefield, because that would mean entering a war, and it is absolutely clear to all of us that this is impossible at the moment," he emphasized.
He also pointed out that Kiev is asking its allies to send it long-range and medium-range missiles. "We have given guarantees that we will not use these missiles to attack Russian territory," the politician said.
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.
On March 19, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin said that France was already preparing a military contingent to be sent to Ukraine, which would initially amount to about 2,000 soldiers. After that, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces made a statement on the social network X that what Naryshkin said did not correspond to reality.