After France’s Le Monde reported that proposals to send British and French troops to fight in Ukraine had been “reactivated,” a new article in Germany’s Bild makes the same claim. According to military expert Carlo Masala, there needs to be a “coalition of the willing, which is also willing to send ground troops to Ukraine,” if the U.S. stops supplying weapons. With regard to this, “a lot is currently in motion, in France, Great Britain and Poland,” Masala claimed.
Despite this, officials continue to deny that such discussions are underway. French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, speaking to reporters at the Berlin meeting of European defense ministers, said of the Le Monde article: “I was surprised to read it, and I honestly haven’t quite understood it.” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the same, according to The Standard. “We are very clear that we stand ready and continue to support the Ukrainians with training particularly, but there has been a longstanding position that we are not committing U.K. troops to the theater of action,” he told Italian, French and German newspapers La Repubblica, Le Monde and Die Welt at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Italy. “That is certainly the U.K. position, and remains the U.K. position at this time.”
