{"id":282578,"date":"2024-02-28T08:05:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T08:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282578"},"modified":"2024-02-29T07:39:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T07:39:00","slug":"frances-macron-does-not-rule-out-europeans-sending-troops-to-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=282578","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s Macron does not rule out Europeans sending troops to Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Al Jazeera \u2013 Feb 26, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>French President Emmanuel Macron has said that sending Western ground troops to Ukraine could not be \u201cruled out\u201d as European allies announced new measures to deliver munitions and boost Kyiv in its fight against Russia.<\/p>\n<p>The comments on Monday came after some 20 European leaders gathered in Paris to send Russian President Vladimir Putin a message of European resolve on Ukraine and counter the Kremlin\u2019s narrative that Moscow was bound to win a war now in its third year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are convinced that the defeat of Russia is indispensable to security and stability in Europe,\u201d Macron told reporters after the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Macron declined to provide details about which nations were considering sending troops, saying he prefers to maintain some \u201cstrategic ambiguity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A White House official told the Reuters news agency that the United States had no plans to send troops to fight in Ukraine and that there were also no plans to send NATO troops to fight in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We are talking about our support for Ukraine and our collective security.<\/p>\n<p>A collective leap is necessary from all of us. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NViI9ntaVY\">pic.twitter.com\/NViI9ntaVY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EmmanuelMacron\/status\/1762167787147911346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The conference in Paris signalled Macron\u2019s eagerness to present himself as a European champion of Ukraine\u2019s cause, amid growing fears that US support could wane in the coming years.\u00a0German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Poland\u2019s President Andrzej Duda were among the European heads of state and government present at the conference, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined virtually.<\/p>\n<p>Duda said the most heated discussion was about whether to send troops to Ukraine and \u201cthere was no agreement on the matter\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOpinions differ here, but there are no such decisions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine, meanwhile said several NATO and European Union members were considering sending soldiers to Ukraine on a bilateral basis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can confirm there are countries that are prepared to send their own troops to Ukraine, there are countries that say never, among which Slovakia belongs, and there are countries that say this proposal needs to be considered,\u201d he said before boarding his plane home.<\/p>\n<p>The conference was called as Ukraine suffered setbacks on eastern battlefields, with its generals complaining of shortages of arms and soldiers.\u00a0It saw progress on a Czech-led initiative to buy hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds from third countries, something that France has been cautious about as it wants to prioritise developing Europe\u2019s own industry.<\/p>\n<p>Ammunition supplies have become a critical issue for Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p>The EU, though, is falling short of its target of sending Ukraine a million rounds of artillery shells by March.<\/p>\n<p>Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said about 15 countries had agreed to sign up to his initiative.\u00a0\u201cWe are talking about hundreds of thousands of pieces of ammunition we should and could get in relatively short time,\u201d Fiala told reporters.<\/p>\n<p>Defence ministers had been mandated to come up with a plan within the next 10 days, Portugal\u2019s Prime Minister Antonio Costa said.<\/p>\n<p>Rutte said the Netherlands would contribute 100 million euros ($108.5m) for the purchase of munitions overseas. He said the countries that would provide the munitions had asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think there was a great sense of urgency, particularly for the short term on ammunition and on air defence,\u201d Rutte said. \u201cI hope other countries will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Macron also announced a new coalition would be set up to supply Ukraine with \u201cmissiles and bombs of medium and long range to carry out deep strikes\u201d. There was a \u201cbroad consensus to do more and quicker\u201d, he added, saying there was also a consensus to ramp up joint production of armaments with Ukraine and boost its own military industry.<\/p>\n<p>The Paris conference comes after France, Germany and the UK recently signed 10-year bilateral agreements\u00a0with Ukraine to send a strong signal of long-term backing as Kyiv works to shore up Western support.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2024\/2\/26\/macron-holds-meeting-in-paris-to-rally-european-support-for-ukraine\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Russia Warns Conflict With NATO &#8220;Inevitable&#8221; If Troops Sent To Ukraine, Kyiv Urges &#8220;Direct Support&#8221;<\/strong><\/h1>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Crux \u2013 Feb 27, 2024<\/h2>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8kviP8xM5hg?si=8Lm_ItdWZFP77sqU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although Germany has rejected the French president\u2019s suggestion, and there has been no firm decision among European nations convened to discus the crisis, the Kremlin has warned that any such intervention would be viewed as an act of war against Russia   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":264863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-france","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282579,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282578\/revisions\/282579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/264863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}