The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Elina Valtonen, did not rule out the possibility of sending foreign troops to Ukraine in the future, but for now, according to her, there is no need for this.
Finland reacted to statements about the deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine
The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland believes that French President Emmanuel Macron did the right thing when he made Russia wonder what the limits of Western support for Ukraine might be.
Now is not the time to send troops, and we don't even want to discuss it at this stage. But in the long run, of course, we shouldn't rule anything out.
Elina Valtonen
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland
What preceded it
On February 26, about 20 European leaders met in Paris to discuss threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After the end of the conference, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the sending of Western ground troops to combat Russian aggression should not be ruled out in the future.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico confirmed that some NATO and EU member countries are allegedly discussing the possibility of sending their troops to the territory of Ukraine after signing bilateral agreements with Kyiv.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the leaders of the Alliance stated that a general decision to send troops to Ukraine had not been made, and Russia called such a move a declaration of war.
On February 29, Estonian Prime Minister Kaia Kallas said that Western leaders should not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine.
On March 4, Macron said that he would not send his troops to Ukraine in the near future, but opened a debate about it. On March 5, Macron called on allies "not to be cowards" regarding Ukraine and to step up.
Macron, commenting on the idea raised by him of sending Western troops to Ukraine, emphasized that France is determined and ready to invest resources to achieve victory over the Russian Federation.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said that French President Emmanuel Macron had in mind the possibility of training when he spoke about sending Western troops to Ukraine.
Recently, the Bloomberg news agency published an article that the statements of the French leader Emmanuel Macron about the possible introduction of Western troops into Ukraine angered the US authorities.
Later, commenting on the idea he raised, Macron emphasized that if such a scenario were to materialize, French forces would not go on the offensive against the Russian Federation.
