Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has clearly rejected French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to send Western troops to Ukraine. It will also apply to the future that “there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil that will be sent there by European states or NATO states,” said Scholz on Tuesday during a visit to Freiburg.
The evening before, at the end of a Ukraine conference in Paris, Macron said that sending Western troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out.
Scholz also emphasized that Western soldiers “are not allowed to take an active part in war activities” even from their home countries. The opposition to sending Western troops to Ukraine is shared by the allies, Scholz said. He referred to the deliberations at the international Ukraine conference the evening before in Paris: the opinion there was “very unanimous” “as far as this issue is concerned.”
Macron caused a stir with his statements at the end of the conference. There is currently no consensus on sending troops to Ukraine, he said. “But nothing must be excluded in order to achieve the goal.” The goal is that Russia is not allowed to win.
According to the alliance, NATO has “no plans for NATO combat troops” in Ukraine. An Allianz employee said this on Tuesday when asked in Brussels. He was responding to French President Emmanuel Macron’s considerations about sending Western troops to Ukraine.
