Nato members may send troops to Ukraine, warns former alliance chief
A group of Nato countries may be willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine if member states including the US do not provide tangible security guarantees to Kyiv at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, the former Nato secretary general Anders Rasmussen has said.
Rasmussen, who has been acting as official adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Ukraine’s place in a future European security architecture, has been touring Europe and Washington to gauge the shifting mood before the critical summit starts on 11 July.
He also warned that even if a group of states did provide Ukraine with security guarantees, others would not allow the issue of Ukraine’s future Nato membership to be kept off the agenda at Vilnius.
He made his remarks as the current Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said the issue of security guarantees would be on the agenda at Vilnius, but added that Nato – under article 5 of the Washington treaty – only provided full-fledged security guarantees to full members.
The US ambassador to Nato, Julianne Smith, said: “We are looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship with Nato.”
Rasmussen said: “If Nato cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action. We know that Poland is very engaged in providing concrete assistance to Ukraine. And I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that Poland would engage even stronger in this context on a national basis and be followed by the Baltic states, maybe including the possibility of troops on the ground.
“I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius. We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings against the true Russian mentality.”
