Russia Warns Of Conflict With NATO If Alliance Sends Troops To Ukraine

The ongoing war in Ukraine has sparked the most severe crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

President Vladimir Putin has previously emphasized the grave risks of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: The Kremlin issued a stern warning on Tuesday, stating that conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would become inevitable if European NATO members deployed troops to engage in combat in Ukraine, reported Reuters.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has sparked the most severe crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. President Vladimir Putin has previously emphasized the grave risks of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Moscow’s warning came a day after French President Emmanuel Macron hinted at the possibility of European nations sending troops to Ukraine, although he emphasized that there was currently no consensus on the matter, as per the Reuters report.

However, NATO refuted any such plans. 'No plans for NATO combat troops in Ukraine,' said a NATO official.

#BREAKING 'No plans for NATO combat troops' in Ukraine: NATO official pic.twitter.com/FqFwxNGGl6

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) February 27, 2024

 European military heavyweights Germany and Poland also affirmed on Tuesday that they would not be sending troops to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the participants had agreed “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there by European states or NATO states.” Scholz said there was also consensus “that soldiers operating in our countries also are not participating actively in the war themselves,” reported AP.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the significance of discussing the potential deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine, highlighting it as a crucial development. He cautioned that if NATO members indeed sent troops to fight in Ukraine, it would lead to an inevitable direct conflict.

"The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, the Reuters report added.

 

"In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)," he added.

Peskov urged Western nations to consider whether such a scenario served the interests of their countries and citizens.

The mere discussion of a confrontation between Russia and NATO evokes Cold War anxieties, underlining the perilous nature of the situation as the West confronts a resurgent Russia, decades after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Russia and the United States, the primary power within NATO, possess the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could potentially ignite World War 3, reported Reuters.