WASHINGTON, May 20. /TASS/. Sending NATO instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops is a "recipe for disaster" if not coordinated with Moscow beforehand, as this risks a direct conflict with Russia, researcher at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Mark Episkopos told the Responsible Statecraft website.
"Sending NATO personnel into Ukraine absent some kind of larger, explicit understanding with Moscow is highly likely to embroil NATO states, including the US, in a real war with Russian forces," he pointed out. According to the analyst, the Kremlin may very well be open to some kind of formal settlement that "establishes lines of demarcation in Ukraine and sanctions the presence of Western military personnel in parts of the country." However, no such proposals have been made so far, Episkopos believes.
As the expert notes, sending NATO instructors to Ukraine "without a larger strategy for ending" the fighting would be "a recipe for disaster" and would "bring NATO and Russia within a hair’s breadth of open conflict." The analyst's comment came in response to a report by chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown, where the general stated that Washington no longer rules out sending NATO instructors to Ukraine to train the Ukrainian armed forces, but that this would not happen anytime soon.
In her turn, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told the Financial Times that an open conflict between NATO and Russia was out of the question, even if the training personnel of the North Atlantic Alliance countries were killed in Ukraine. She pointed out that a number of NATO countries had already sent their instructors to the combat areas.