NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the Western military alliance will not send combat troops to Ukraine in the event that Russia invades the country.
“We have no plans to deploy NATO combat troops to Ukraine…we are focusing on providing support,” Stoltenberg told the BBC during an interview on January 30. “There is a difference between being a NATO member and being a strong and highly valued partner as Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg’s comments come among heightened tensions between NATO and Moscow as Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s border, which has led to concerns of an invasion.
The Kremlin, which has denied it plans to invade as it did in 2014 when it seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, has insisted in recent negotiations with Washington and NATO that guarantees be made that Ukraine and other former Soviet states will not be admitted to the alliance.
Ukraine seeks NATO membership but has not been offered a Membership Action Plan, which would provide a road map to joining. However, NATO has said its “open door” policy is not up for negotiation, and Washington has stressed that sovereign states have a right to choose their own military alliances.
After the United States responded to Moscow’s demands in writing, Russian President Vladimir Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron on January 28 that he felt the West had “ignored” Moscow’s security concerns.
NATO has said it is prepared to step up its troop presence in its Eastern European member states should Russia invade Ukraine, and many members of the alliance have provided military equipment, including lethal weaponry, to Kyiv as tensions mount.
Washington has said that it is seeking a diplomatic solution to the standoff but added that Russia must first dismantle its buildup near Ukraine’s border.
“The Russian government has said publicly that it has no intention to invade Ukraine, but the facts on the ground tell a much different story,” U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan said on January 28.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he expects to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the coming weeks for a new round of talks, but that Putin will ultimately decide how to respond to Washington’s stated response to Moscow’s demands.
Moscow has been backing separatist fighters in an ongoing war in eastern Ukraine that has claimed more than 13,200 lives since 2014, the same year Russian illegally annexed Crimea.
