NATO member won’t rule out sending troops to Ukraine — RT World News

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on Wednesday refused to give parliament guarantees that she would not send ground troops from the Baltic country to help Kiev.

Only Estonia and Lithuania showed any of these results agitation Russia has opposed the idea of ​​sending soldiers to Ukraine, after French President Emmanuel Macron claimed at the end of February that all options should be examined to prevent Russia from winning.

During question period on Wednesday, some members of the Estonian parliament asked Kallas to ensure that the Estonian Defense Forces are not deployed in Ukraine.

“I do not make such promises, because circumstances may change.” she He replied. “According to your interpretation, it appears that interference may be occurring [defined as] anything. Russia could also view our military assistance to Ukraine as interference.

He added, “We have clearly chosen a side here, and that side is Ukraine, because Russia poses a direct threat to us.” Dua added.

She told MPs that Tallinn intended to help train Ukrainian forces, not send its soldiers to the battlefield, creating semantic confusion.

The Soviet Union's former Baltic republic joined the US-led military bloc in 2004 along with Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Estonia has a force of about 4,200 soldiers on active duty, which could theoretically be expanded to a wartime army of 1,000. 43000. By comparison, Ukraine suffered 125,000 casualties during the six months of its counteroffensive in 2023, according to Russian statistics. Estimates. The government in Kiev hid or downplayed its losses, but President Vladimir Zelensky said in December that an additional 500,000 troops were needed on the front.

Macron's idea of ​​ground troops may have been motivated by a series of reasons Grim battlefield reportsAccording to the French newspaper Marianne, last week. One secret document indicated that many Westerners “Wearing civilian clothes” Already serving as trainers or advisers in Kiev, they proposed freeing the Ukrainians for front-line duty by assigning barely disguised NATO personnel to rear-area duties.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that all talk about sending forces to Ukraine was a concealment of the real agenda of some NATO members, which was to… “Dividing what they consider to be the remains of Ukraine.”