Western troops in Ukraine?/ Breaking taboos?

2024-05-31 08:40:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

It seems as if the taboos are falling one after the other: On a state visit to Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded that Ukraine be allowed to use Western weapons to strike military targets in Russia. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, did not object, stating that international law allows this. Previously, it was the General Secretary of NATO, Stoltenberg, and government officials from Great Britain, Poland and the Baltic countries who had spoken about this. The USA and Germany were against it until now and justified this with the escalation of the situation.

With Western weapons against the advance of Russian troops

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asking in many Western capitals these days to break this taboo. Ukraine is currently very weakened militarily, also because the US has not sent weapons for months. In the northeast of Ukraine, near the Russian border, Russia is bombing the city of Kharkiv every day. The Russian military has taken some territory in the meantime and is gathering forces for a stronger strike, according to Ukrainian data.

So far, Ukraine has only responded with its own weapons on Russia's internationally recognized territories. For the occupied territories of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the restriction does not apply, here Ukraine can use western weapons. Jahara Matisek, a battalion commander in the US Air Force and a professor at the US Naval War College, believes that Ukraine cannot defend cities like Kharkiv without counterattacks by Western weapons near the Russian border. That Russia thinks it has a "safe harbor on its territory" is a wrong military strategy," says Matisek.

Western troops in Ukraine?/ Breaking taboos?

Western instructors in western Ukraine?

Other taboos are also shaking. The presence of troops of some NATO countries in Ukraine seems possible. Oleksand Syrskyj, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, according to his own data, has signed documents for the presence of French instructors. They may come "soon" to see Ukrainian training centers, the general wrote on social media. France initially played down the message, but Macron has now revealed that France will next week present a plan to send instructors. If France sends instructors, it would not be alone with this initiative. Poland will not rule this out, nor will the Baltic states.

"As Russia Advances, NATO Considers Sending Instructors to Ukraine," headlined an article in the New York Times in early May. This would allow the government in Kiev to quickly train newly mobilized soldiers and send them to the front, it said. The main limitation: no direct military action with Russia.

For Jahara Matisek, sending military instructors is easily feasible. "Several thousand Western troops could easily be sent to Lviv as part of a training mission," the expert says. The EU currently has such a training mission and could move it to Ukraine. Matisek also has a proposal that goes even further, but is not at all in the political discussion: Western countries send troops along the Ukrainian border and inland to the banks of the Dnieper River. "I think that this would send a clear signal to Vladimir Putin that the West will no longer tolerate further territorial invasions in Ukraine," explains Matisek. According to him, "if the Europeans do this, up to 20 Ukrainian brigades would be freed, which could be moved closer to the front". There is also criticism of this idea in the circles of military experts.

Restricted no-fly zone

If the West did indeed send troops to Ukraine, that would also mean "more air defense," according to Matisek. In Germany, some politicians and experts are of the opinion that NATO countries should strike Russian drones and missiles from their territory. The MP of the CDU, Roderich Kiesewetter in the opposition, but also representatives from the coalition parties, Markus Faber from the FDP, Agnieszka Brugger and Anton Hofreiter from the Greens support this idea: From countries like Poland to protect the sky up to 70 km inside the western Ukraine.

In effect this would be a no-fly zone. Chancellor Scholz is against any kind of NATO participation and criticizes such ideas. He supports the idea of ??more supplies of missile defense systems to Ukraine - Germany only recently sent the Patroit and IRIS-T systems.

Matisek says that he understands the German reservation against Russia, for historical reasons. But he sees the risk of escalation as acceptable. If the Western mission is limited and only Russian missiles and drones are fired over Ukraine, not those over Russia or Russia's ally Belarus, then this would be "almost a humanitarian mission."

But not everyone thinks so. The no-fly zone is difficult to enforce, Western observers say. None of the heads of NATO countries have affirmed this. Russia has clearly threatened that Western soldiers in Ukraine would become the target of Russian attacks./ DW