Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called not to attach too much significance to EU conferences on Ukraine in Paris.
"The number of Western conferences is obviously growing. They are trying to offset the decreasing interest and dramatic drop in financial capabilities to maintain the Zelensky regime. The French and President [of France Emmanuel] Macron are overly enthusiastic about convening all sorts of events, caring little about their potential outcome. I would not attach too much significance to the conferences organized in Paris," he told a news conference, commenting on a European conference on Ukraine that was held in Paris on February 26.
Thus, he recalled that such events have never yielded any concrete results. As an example, he cited the Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, when Western countries promised to allocate some 100 billion US dollars a year to developing countries to ensure their energy transition within ten years. However, according to Lavrov, not more than 20 or 30 billion US dollars have been allocated for these purposes since then, while the sums going to Kiev are much bigger.
Macron said after a meeting in the Elysee Palace on February 26 that the participants had looked at sending ground troops to Ukraine. Although no consensus was reached on this topic, he did not rule out such a scenario in the future. The Paris conference on Ukraine was attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish President Andrzej Duda and prime ministers from around 20 EU countries. The United States was represented by US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien, and David Cameron represented the United Kingdom.
Gabriel Attal has also argued that the deployment of Western soldiers to support Kiev cannot be ruled out
Speaking to the RTL broadcaster on Tuesday, Attal argued that “you can’t rule anything out in a war,” repeating several talking points Macron had made following a meeting on the Ukraine conflict one day previously.
“There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground,” Macron had said, before adding that “in terms of dynamics, we cannot exclude anything.”
According to the French leader, a Russian victory in the Ukraine conflict would be a major blow for European collective security.
Responding on Tuesday to the statements, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that “in this case, we have to talk not about the probability, but rather the inevitability [of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia],” should Western military personnel be deployed to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US-led military bloc’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, told the Associated Press that “there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine.”
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala also argued that existing mechanisms to shore up Ukraine are sufficient, with no “need to open some other methods or ways.”
His Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, likewise clarified that Warsaw “does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized on Tuesday that there will be “no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil, who are sent there by European or NATO countries” in the future.
Reuters quoted an unnamed White House official as saying on Monday that Washington has no such plans either.
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