Spain said on Tuesday that it was against any deployment of European troops in Ukraine after France’s Emmanuel Macron refused to rule out sending Western soldiers.
Macron had been speaking following a summit in Paris on Monday of top officials from more than 20 of Ukraine’s Western backers, and which Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez attended. Macron said that sending in Western ground troops should not be ‘ruled out’ in the future.
‘As to whether we are in favour of deploying European troops to Ukraine, we’ve already made our position clear and we do not agree,’ said Spanish government spokeswoman Pilar Alegría on Tuesday.
‘We must concentrate on the most urgent thing, which is to speed up the delivery of [military] equipment’ to Kyiv, she said, saying ‘unity’ was Europe’s ‘most effective weapon’ against Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Macron triggered a shockwave late on Monday by refusing to rule out the dispatch of Western ground troops to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.
‘There is no consensus today to send ground troops … but nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war,’ he said.
He refused to say more about France’s position, citing the need for ‘strategic ambiguity’, but saying the issue was mentioned among the options.

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