Slovakia Prime Minister Robert Fico warned on Monday that some NATO and EU countries are considering sending troops to Ukraine, a step that would risk direct war between NATO and Russia.
“Several NATO and EU member states are considering sending their soldiers to Ukraine on a bilateral basis,” said Fico, who was elected last year on a platform of opposing the proxy war in Ukraine.
Some NATO members have signed bilateral security deals with Ukraine, including Germany and the UK, but there’s no indication they’re considering sending troops at this time.
“We see huge security risks in the bilateral agreements that are likely to be conducted soon with NATO and EU member states that want to send their troops to Ukraine,” Fico said.
He made the comments ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Paris about the proxy war in Ukraine. After the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron said the idea of Western troops in Ukraine hasn’t been ruled out.
“There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out,” Macron said.
The Discord leaks revealed last year that there are a small number of NATO special operations forces inside Ukraine. According to a leaked Pentagon document, there were 97 NATO special operations soldiers in Ukraine, including 14 Americans, as of March 2023.
We recall the unsuccesful attempt to evacuate by helicopters the high ranking NATO staff from the besieged Avostal complex at Mariupol.. NATO has been in UA from 2014, living in hotels, some as mercenaries and others as higher level staff..
All of the resources for a corrupt mafia state, which is neither in the EU or NATO, but might as well be.. Many of the 27 countries of the EU can only dream of the cash-flow being flooded to a non-member..
“We recall the unsuccesful attempt to evacuate by helicopters the high ranking NATO staff from the besieged Avostal complex at Mariupol.”
No, we recall persistent internet rumors and conspiracy theories about those alleged “NATO high ranking staff” at Avostal. No credible evidence of their existence has emerged.
The attempted helicopter rescue wasn’t staged to evacuate the plant janitors.. Russian sources knew of the presence of NATO staff in Avostal, and blew the helicopters to kingdom come..
Using the USA playbook of lies or silence, NATO chose silence..
This is exactly the sort of persistent internet rumor based on an unsupported conspiracy theory that I cited. You’re either making shit up or just repeating shit that either people made up and that you, without credible evidence, have chosen to believe.
vzglyad.ru, smi2.ru, colonel cassad live journal.ru, dances with bears, country.ua, etc..
Got no time for the hitler-lovers..
Nothing new here except an end to some of the lying maybe. News reports on several occasions stumbled upon the admission that a significant percentage of fighters against Russia in Ukraine have been western mercenaries/covert special forces.
So much for the claim that handing over 60 billion to prolong the war will prevent direct military contact between Russia and western soldiers.
I agree with Biden, “We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin, and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate.” But, I’m still not totally clear. Do “we always have to worry about nuclear conflict,” if we are dying from the Clim8? Like, what if we actually triggered a “nuclear conflict?”
Rumors of intelligent life on the third planet from the minor solar system two thirds of the way out from the center of a nondescript galaxy far from the core regions, 13 billion light years away from the presumed origin of Big Bang number 254,357, have been greatly exaggerated.
I think there is plenty of evidence of intelligent life on that planet, but we can’t find any here in our neighborhood, my friend.
Beam me up Scotty, there’s no intelligent life down here.
Never a better time to be abducted by aliens
I only hope that the next 97 bullets hit these POS mercenaries instead of conscripted Ukrainians, who didn’t ask for this. That would be the only thing these f’ing dirtbags are good for.
Wow, so you hope people die!!!
No; I hope that IF people have to die, those most deserving be the ones to do so. In this case, mercenaries are far more deserving of death than Ukrainian conscripts. So let’s hope that if the fighting continues, they go first.
Someone please help here. 😉
I thought everything was going well for Zelensky? Why more troops?
He recently stated that Ukraine has lost only, 30,000 KIA compared to the 1,000,000 + Russian KIA.
I think that he’s planning for a secret 2024 Summer Counteroffensive. 2023 must has just been a distraction to get the Russians thinking they have the Ukrainians on the run. Yeah, that’s it!
Guess when it’s all over, Zelensky will take back all the territory and send Russians fleeing scared so bad there’d be no need for a peace deal. Total KIA after all that: 30,001.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
It’s probably a combination of three things.
One is that Ukraine has proven itself incapable of successfully taking the offensive with the manpower available to it, even with US/EU/NATO aid in the form of weapons and ammunition. Absent US/EU/NATO “boots on the ground,” the best outcome it can realistically hope for is to remain on the strategic defensive until the Russians get tired of bleeding and return to “frozen conflict” while remaining in control of Donetsk and Luhansk.
A second is that the strategic defensive isn’t very glamorous, and keeping the aid flowing requires a certain amount of glamor. So they need to find the troops to take the offensive to at least some degree.
The third is that two years of abject Russian failure has led to the rest of Europe not being afraid of the Russians anymore, so they may be willing to provide those troops.
“…two years of abject Russian failure…”
No.
This, I’m afraid, is virtually an idée fixe for Mr. Knapp. Maybe he’ll be able to revise his view and understanding in retrospect, but it looks like it won’t happen in real time.
If the Russian forces ever manage to unfuck themselves, I’ll revise my view. Just as I did after several weeks of expecting them to get the job done, and observing that they didn’t.
What Job is that…?!
It’s the job that Mr. Knapp is certain the Russians have tried to do from February 2022. There’s no evidence at all that it is the job Russia actually assigned itself, but believing (or pretending) that it did — and that it is therefore failing — helps the propagandists of the West tell a story that doesn’t make them look as bad as the alternative.
For some reason, Mr. Knapp agrees with the Western propagandists.
If the Russians AREN’T trying to secure Luhansk and Donetsk, what do you think they ARE trying to do?
I did assume that Putin was lying when he announced that the “Special Military Operation” would conquer, occupy, and annex (“de-Nazify and demilitarize”) Ukraine, and that he had more limited objectives.
When the Russian forces acted like they were about to take Kyiv and then stopped, I did assume that that was a strategic feint intended to tie down Ukrainian troops that otherwise could have been used in the east, not a genuine attempt to take the city (and thus a failure).
But as time dragged on with the minimal plausible objectives unaccomplished, I didn’t try to put “oh, see, they’re not really TRYING” lipstick on the pig.
As I’ve said before, there will be a significant turning point (maybe Odessa) or maybe the cumulative effect of recent gains + pending gains may tip the scales? Maybe the EU saying “f*ck you” for a change? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Regardless, the Empire will have no choice but to direct Zelensky to the negotiation table.
A well-crafted narrative will accompany this to make it seem that this was the plan all along.
“It’s too bad what we did to Ukraine, but we are here now to help you rebuild, but no guarantees of EU or NATO accession. Understand? And another thing Vlad, you told us you only lost 30,000 soldiers. That’s nothing compared to the 1,000,000+ Russia lost, right? Just keep repeating that.”
(Let’s just brush aside the rampant corruption that is firmly entrenched in all levels of Ukrainian gov’t and society).
What a firm and stable foundation we have!
They seem to be doing well now. They are advancing all across the front, one reason why Ukraine and the West are panicking.
It’s more like Two Years of Ukrainian slash NATO failure…!
They were only afraid of Russia because of nukes. The nukes are still there. The idea that there no longer is a red line that could lead to their use is a gamble. To say the least.
No, they weren’t only afraid of Russia because of nukes.
The west makes a habit of over-estimating Russia’s conventional capabilities. It did so throughout the Cold War, partly irrationally and partly opportunistically (asserting overwhelming Russian superiority is a great way to get “defense” contract money flowing and “defense” budgets increased).
That was embarrassing in the 1991 war when when everything from the Soviet arsenal outside the small-arms-to-artillery range turned out to be trash, and when Chechnya turned into an interminable imperial clusterfuck. But after the quick, efficient Russian victory in the Georgia/Abkhazia/South Ossetia dust-up, the assumption that the Russians were a major conventional military power came back. Until they showed their cards in Ukraine.
The nuclear threat will always be there. But there are two possibilities: Either Putin is sane and won’t use nukes in any non-existential-threat situation, or he’s insane and what the west does will have no effect on his decision to use or not use them.
Since Ukraine is a peripheral imperial concern (with China as its guarantor against nuclear strikes), two declining empires’ attempt to remain relevant but not even close to existential, nukes just aren’t part of the concern. Is it a gamble? Yes. It’s a gamble on whether Putin is sane. And most people are betting that he is.
Oh bullshit. The US/NATO would be directly involved in Ukraine if Russia didn’t have nukes.
That might be true, but the US-NATO would have to greatly increase weapons and materiel production, and be able to commit many more ground forces than it now has available, if it didn’t want to be bogged down in a hopeless ground war on Russia’s doorstep. Or worse.
First, we have to imagine Russia without nukes. And since that would have changed so many things over the course of the years it’s really hard to even speculate about how anything would be now.
One thing is true now and doesn’t require speculation, because the history of the last two years of the war in Ukraine makes it clear: Russia’s military strength and MIC production capability, and its capacity to grow both, significantly exceeds that of the West. So it would be a very, very bad idea for the West to engage Russia in a land war on its border.
The US-NATO knows this and is clearly not interested in such an adventure.
Now, the balance could change, if the West went into full-scale mobilization, but that is unlikely in the extreme, because Western populations would strongly resist. And, of course, both Russia and the West, and China, do have nukes.
Sometimes I do not understand where Thomas is coming from. This particular line of logic appears to be an Idée fixe.
This would already be a repeat of the Crimean War of 1853-6, if not for the nuclear weapons of Russia. We know they’d do it, because they did it.
Well they kicked Hitler’s ass as well as Napoleon’s (if memory serves). And your comment about their material hardware being trash is dated.
Some people just can’t let go of the Cold War era.
Yes, it’s dated. As of 2022, I expected that they had fixed the problems that they’d identified over the course of decades of use of their exported weapons abroad. Most people seem to have expected that. And then they went all epic fail.
and Russia was only afraid that NATO would set up nukes in Ukraine
Again with the “donetsk and luhansk” fantasy; yet the Russians are attacking in Zaporizhia right now, retaking the ground lost last year, and expanding beyond. There seems to be zero hope that Ukraine can stop them, and they’ve already proven they can’t retake it, so once more, why in the world would Russia give that ground up? That makes absolutely no sense.
Ukraine has plenty of manpower reserves. They set the draft floor at 27, and by just lowering it to 25 they can mobilize another 500k. They don’t need foreign troops to do ordinary fighting. Special missions that professional foreign forces are trained to do is another story. For the most part, though, Ukraine lacks materiel, not manpower.
And that 31K KIA figure Zelensky quoted is Laugh Out Loud humor. Add a zero to the end and the number might be close to correct.
The AP quoted a draft evader in Ukraine saying he “doesn’t want to kill anyone”. The ukrainians who do have killed and died, or are mostly 40+ yrs old and are exhausted after 2 years of trench warfare, many wounded repeatedly. Even if they got more arms Ukraine will keep loosing people and ground until zelensky has no one left to die for nothing but a smaller and more destroyed country.
Not gonna happen. The only Western troops fighting for Ukraine will continue to be mercenaries (not sure how many remain willing to risk their lives in an obviously-hopeless exercise).
All of the pathetic excuses Europe currently has as leaders know that sending troops to Ukraine would result in certain disaster. That includes Macron.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europeans-rule-out-sending-troops-ukraine-russia-rebukes-macron-2024-02-27/
I always ignore what they say and focus on their deeds.
First, start a coup.
Second, finance an army.
Third, send mercenaries.
Last, get directly involved.
Well, if you’re focused on their deeds, you’ll probably have noticed that they haven’t sent troops to fight in Ukraine.
I know some believe that the Western mercenaries were sent by Western governments. I don’t think we have any credible evidence to support that and there doesn’t seem to ever have been enough of them to make a difference anyway.
Mercenary groups have had a presence in Ukraine since 2014 and they don’t work for free. All I’m pointing out is that NATO will get involved directly at some point. Nothing coming out of Brussels, London or DC can be taken seriously. At some point they will set up some kind of false flag to drag NATO at the eastern front. Maybe the 3rd time will be the charm to take down Russia?
“All I’m pointing out is that NATO will get involved directly at some point.”
You’re not “pointing out,” you’re guessing. And you’d better hope you are proven wrong.
“Slovakia Says Some NATO Members Are Considering Sending Troops to Ukraine”
for what purpose? to invade Crimea again?
Russia really hasn’t advanced into Ukraine itself.
The first ones to send troops will be the first ones to get blown off the face of the earth. The EU is too big anyway.
SIMPLICIUS Ѱ reposted
OSINT (Uri) 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱
@UKikaski
BREAKING! Polish Authorities detained Ukrainian journalist Mykhailo Tkach and his crew from “Ukrainian Pravda” who were filming the free and unhindered transit of commercial goods, including agricultural products, by truck from Russia and Belarus across the border into Poland.
https://pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/02/27/7443995/
Tkach’s comment about their detention:
“Polish policemen approached us near the border between Poland and Belarus and showed us a badge. We showed our documents and journalist’s credentials. They started grabbing our cameras, searching …
Then we were brought to the commandant’s office. About 10 people began to search our car, us, threw our things on the hood, took all the memory cards from the cameras , took away all the phones, documents.
During the interrogation at the commandant’s office, I said that we were journalists and said that we were filming how Poland trades with Russia through Belarus and how Poland trades with Belarus, how agricultural products go from Russia and Belarus to Poland.
It was clear that the representatives of the Polish special service were frightened . They started asking me who else knows about it, whether the Ukrainian authorities, the Ukrainian government, know about it. They asked who our sources are, how we found out about it, how long we have been working on this topic.”
Death Wishes…!
If a country sends troops to fight in Ukraine then their Capitals may become smoking radioactive holes in the ground.
These little lapdog countries expect America to bail them out, but they are snorting cocaine like Zelensky and Hunter Biden!
Many of us do not care if these lapdog countries see 100% death of their civilians.
“Many of us do not care if these lapdog countries see 100% death of their civilians.”
I hope “many of you” aren’t proud of that not caring.
“Macron received support from Lithuania, sending troops for training.”
New York City has a population of over 8.8 million people.
Lithuania
has a population of 2.8 million people and they are pushing for NATO
and American troops to be inserted into Ukraine. A Chihuahua dog trying
to wag Americas tail.
Perhaps New York City should become a NATO member.