NATO, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic said Tuesday they were not planning to send troops to Ukraine.

Statements were issued after French President Emmanuel Macron said late on Monday that the idea could not be ruled out.

"NATO and Allies are providing unprecedented military support to Ukraine,"  a NATO official said on condition of anonymity. "But there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine."

Britain said it had no plans to deploy soldiers to Ukraine in large numbers.

"The UK already has a small number of personnel in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, including for medical training," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman told reporters.

"We've got no plans to make a large-scale deployment," he added.

Poland and the Czech Republic also said they were not planning to send troops to Ukraine but they insisted that all European countries give Kyiv full support in fighting off Russia's invasion. 

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with his Czech counterpart Petr Fiala in Prague ahead of a meeting of the Visegrad Group -- an alliance of Central European countries.

"We are not considering sending our troops to Ukraine and we have a common position on this point" with the Czech Republic, Tusk said in Tuesday's joint press conference with Fiala.

"Today, we have to concentrate, like the Polish and Czech governments have done, on supporting Ukraine fully in its military effort," Tusk added.

The two leaders spoke of their "common point of view" on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Tusk promised to support a Czech plan for the two countries to jointly buy ammunition for Kyiv from third countries.

"If all EU countries were committed in helping Ukraine like Poland and the Czech Republic, then it would not be necessary to discuss other forms of support for Ukraine," he added.

The two leaders expressed their support for the idea of seizing Russian funds around the world, which they said were worth around $300 billion. They said this could be used to support Ukraine financially.  

Russian warning of 'inevitability' of confrontation 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the deployment of troops to Ukraine was not in the interests of Western countries.

"This is absolutely not in the interests of these countries, they should be aware of this," Peskov said after being asked about Macron's statement, adding that many countries "are keeping a fairly sober assessment of the potential dangers of such actions".

"The very fact that the possibility of sending some contingents from NATO countries to Ukraine is being discussed is a very important new element," he said.

He noted that the Kremlin was "well aware of Mr Macron's position on the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia."

Asked if the appearance of NATO troops in Ukraine would lead to a direct confrontation between the alliance and Russia, Peskov said:

"In this case we need to speak not about a possibility but of the inevitability" of confrontation, Peskov said. 

"And these countries need... to ask themselves if (confrontation) is in their interests and, mainly, if it's in the interests of the citizens", he said.

Russian advance continues

Meanwhile, Russian forces said Tuesday they had captured another village near the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine which they took over earlier this month after a long battle.

"In the area of Avdiivka, units... liberated the settlement of Severnoye," the Russian defence ministry said in its daily update, using a Russian name for the village of Sieverne. 

Russia also claimed its forces had destroyed an American-supplied Abrams tank in Ukraine, the first such claim since Washington delivered the heavy vehicles to Kyiv. 

"The enemy lost... two tanks, including a US-made Abrams," the defence ministry said, after reports from Russian military bloggers showed unverified images purporting to show the vehicles on fire.

 

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