‘Soldiers From NATO Countries are Already in Ukraine’ Says Poland’s Foreign Minister

US soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 10th Marines Regiment, participate in the Nordic Respo
Getty Images
Oliver JJ Lane

Poland’s Foreign Minister, returned after a ten-year spell in opposition, has said NATO soldiers are already in Ukraine, thanking alliance member states so deployed for taking “this risk”, the latest comments in a growing European conversation on boots on the ground for Kyiv.

Radosław Sikorski, speaking in the Polish Parliament on Saturday during an event marking the 25th anniversary of Poland signing the NATO treaty, declared with certainty there are already troops from the alliance stationed in neighbouring Ukraine. Referring to the bullish remarks of French President Emmanuel Macron on the need to keep all options open on fighting Russia, and the apparent slip-ups of the German Chancellor and Military on the direct involvement of the United Kingdom and France, Sikorski stopped short of saying from which states he believed are involved.

FM Sikorski said, as reported by U.S. government news outlet Radio Free Europe, that their presence came with some threat. He told the gathering: “Soldiers from NATO countries are already in Ukraine. I would like to thank the countries that take this risk.” Those countries with forces inside Ukraine “themselves know who they are” but “unlike other European politicians”, Sikorski said he would not be drawn further.

Also on Saturday Sikorski said “it is not unthinkable” that forces could be sent to Ukraine and said it was good the French President was speaking a big game on Ukraine, because “it is about Putin being afraid, not us being afraid of Putin.”

France’s Macron had said in February that NATO soldiers to Ukraine “could not be ruled out”, and despite a host of alliance leaders categorically rejecting the idea, Macron and a small group of others have not stopped speaking about the idea. Macron has since insisted his comments were measured and thought through, and apparently, part of a Trumpian mind-game with Putin where comments are interpreted figuratively if not literally and made for effect.

Russia, which could not be said to have any moral high ground on the subject of inserting foreign troops into Ukraine, responded to Sikorski’s comments on Sunday, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova saying there is “no point in denying it any longer”. Russian politician and Putin-loyalist Konstantin Kosachev said “NATO is increasingly being drawn into the Ukrainian conflict” and that the presence of Western soldiers in Ukraine is an “open secret”.

As previously reported, many Western states have small numbers of troops present in Ukraine, as they do in many countries around the world, for duties like embassy and VIP protection. The United States also has a small group of military auditors in Ukraine to ensure the huge quantities of donated weaponry flowing into the country are used on the front lines as intended and don’t end up on the global black market. Yet, the involvement beyond this discrete level has, until now, been a matter of utter taboo until the omerta surrounding it was broken by Macron in February.

Foreign Minister Sikorski, for his part, is a long-term hawk on Russia and during his party’s last time in government back in 2014, he appealed to the United States to build a military base in Poland to deter Russian aggression. He said in June 2014, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, that: “For the first time since the Second World War, one European country has taken a province by force from another European country… America, we hope, has ways of reassuring us that we haven’t even thought about. There are major bases in Britain, in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy. Why not here?”.

Just weeks later, Sikorski was drawn into a major controversy after tapes alleging to be of a private conversation in which he was said to be heard denigrating Poland’s relationship with the United States as “worthless” and subservient, was leaked to a Polish newspaper. Sikorski said the leak was an attack on the government by a criminal group. Whether Russia was involved in the release of this audio has been litigated and relitigated in the years since.

The Sikorski tape also discussed then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who after a break from government is also back in power, this time as Sikorski’s opposite number as British Foreign Secretary. Sikorski was alleged to have said in the tape in 2014, reported by the BBC, that Cameron was incompetent, led by propaganda, and manipulative.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.