BRUSSELS, August 20. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will hardly be able to send troops to Ukraine because of their political weakness, Politico Europe quoted sources as saying.

"If one considers how politically weak Macron and Starmer are, it is not easy to see how this plan (to send troops to Ukraine - TASS) will go," one EU diplomat told the newspaper. "It’s not an easy time economically," he added.

Their closest allies in the EU are skeptical of the idea of deploying troops in Ukraine. Social Democratic legislator Andreas Schwarz, who is responsible for parliamentary oversight of Germany’s defense budget, stressed that his country’s "is too small" and that even sending 5,000 troops "is stretching Bundeswehr". Poland is ruling out sending troops to Ukraine because "it cannot weaken the forces needed to prevent an attack," a senior Polish official told Politico.

On August 19, two meetings on Ukraine were held as the `coalition of the willing’ and the European Council convened via video link. Both events discussed the results of the Russia-US summit in Alaska, US President Donald Trump’s talks with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and several European leaders, and security guarantees for Ukraine as soon as the hostilities end.