Poland supports Emmanuel Macron's ground troop advance in Ukraine, Germany continues to oppose it

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French and Polish soldiers during a NATO exercise on March 4th

Photo: Kacper Pempel / REUTERS

French President Emmanuel Macron's move not to rule out the use of ground troops in Ukraine is creating ever deeper rifts between the NATO states: After the defense ministers of Germany and Finland called an end to the debate on Friday morning and focused on the more important arms aid for Ukraine Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressly contradicted them on Friday evening: "The presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is not unthinkable.

I welcome the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron," he wrote on Platform X and went even further than Macron by referring to NATO troops.

He said at a conference in Paris last week that he did not want to rule out the use of ground troops in Ukraine.

A number of governments subsequently made it clear that this was out of the question for them.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz clearly contradicted this and recalled the agreement in the Western alliance that NATO should not become a party to the war.

"Nobody really wants boots on the ground in Ukraine, there is a discussion about it now, so we should stop it at this point," warned Pistorius on Friday during a visit to Helsinki.

Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen made similar comments: “Nobody supports the boots on the ground idea now,” he said.

"But everyone supports greater support in the form of weapons, ammunition and money, and that's what we should focus on now."

Pistorius also said that there was a problem with the production capacity for artillery, especially for ammunition, for air defense systems, for Patriot and IRIS-T missiles.

"We must do everything we can all over the world to collect, procure, buy and produce whatever is possible to support Ukraine as best as possible." Germany has trained 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers by the end of 2023.

The same number received training in Germany in 2024.

After Germany doubled its military aid to Ukraine this year to 7.5 billion euros, EU states also increased their aid.

The French government now wants to provide three billion euros, but emphasized that the quality of the weapon systems delivered also matters.

Macron's initiative had already provoked different reactions last week.

Now there is also open dissent in the Weimar Triangle of France, Germany and Poland, which is about to be revived.

Because both Macron and Sikorski accused the opponents of a ground forces debate of shortsightedness and cowardice.

"The point is that Putin is afraid, not that we are afraid of Putin," wrote the Polish Foreign Minister.

The federal government, on the other hand, points out that the support of the population in many NATO states for Ukraine should not be jeopardized through such debates.

dop/Reuters