MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative to send troops to Ukraine has pushed EU countries to boost military aid for Kiev, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.

"I believe that the French initiative has already proved useful <...>. Perhaps, it’s partially due to President Macron’s tactical maneuver that we eventually received what had been negotiated for a year, that is, five billion euros for the European Peace Facility, whose funds are largely intended to additionally arm Ukraine at the moment," the top Polish diplomat stated in an interview with the Rzeczpospolita newspaper. He added that Macron’s remark had also pushed a number of European countries to join the Czech Republic’s initiative to procure ammunition for Kiev in third countries.

On March 18, the foreign ministers of EU member states decided to increase funding for the European Peace Facility by 5 bln euros. Czech President Petr Pavel stated at the Munich Security Conference on February 17 that Prague had found a way to procure hundreds of thousands of artillery shells for Kiev from third countries provided there were enough funds to implement the initiative. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced later that 18 Western countries had come out in support of the initiative, and the purchase of 300,000 shells had been confirmed with further plans for some 200,000 more.

French President Emmanuel 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 troops to Ukraine. According to Macron, no consensus was reached on the issue but such a possibility cannot be ruled out in the future. However, most of the countries that took part in the meeting later stated that they had no plans to send troops to Ukraine and opposed the idea of their participation in military operations against Russia.