Italy antagonizes Western troop placement in Ukraine
(MENAFN) Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has opposed proposals from some European leaders to send troops to Ukraine, Corriere della Sera reported on Monday.
The issue arose during consultations ahead of a Washington visit by several European leaders and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to meet US President Donald Trump, following Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly supported a joint European deployment, prompting Meloni to question, “Russia has 1.3 million soldiers – how many should we send to be up to the task?”
Earlier in March, Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a “coalition of the willing” to provide ground and air forces in a peacekeeping capacity if a truce or peace deal is reached. Meloni, however, favored providing Ukraine with protections similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective defense, without granting formal membership. She told Italian lawmakers that “sending Italian troops to Ukraine is a topic that has never been on the agenda.”
Other European countries, including Germany, Poland, Spain, Romania, and Croatia, have also declined to participate in any military mission in Ukraine. A UK defense official told The Sunday Times that “no one wants to send their troops to die in Ukraine.”
In April, Russian National Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu warned that the deployment of NATO forces to Ukraine could trigger a third world war.
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