Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo in February. NATO already assists Ukraine in virtually every possible aspect, from supplying weaponry and intelligence on Russian targets and the positions of enemy bombers to training thousands of Ukrainian troops in Europe. But until the French president suggested it, no one had dared to raise the question of
Atlantic Alliance soldiers going into action to stop the Kremlin’s invasion. Macron not only opened a debate; his words also served to confirm that there are already military personnel from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil, albeit without taking an active role in combat operations.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told a conference in Warsaw on March 8 that there were already representatives of the Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine. “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine. And I would like to thank the ambassadors of those countries who have taken that risk. These countries know who they are, but I can’t disclose them. Contrary to other politicians, I will not list those countries,”
Sikorski said. The last sentence was a veiled criticism of
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who in late February revealed that British and French military personnel are in Ukraine. Scholz argued that his government would not provide Kyiv with its
Taurus long-range missiles because it would require — as has happened with the British-French Storm Shadow / Scalp rockets — sending military technicians for the programming of these weapons.
The presence of soldiers from NATO countries in Ukraine is nothing new. Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder confirmed in October 2022 that the United States had military representatives stationed to perform the task of monitoring the supply of armaments. In confidential Pentagon documents leaked in April 2023, the U.S. Defense Department indicated that five Atlantic Alliance countries — the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and the Netherlands — had around 100 special forces personnel at their embassies in Ukraine.
The Czech president, Petr Pavel, a retired general and former chairman of the NATO military committee, recalled on March 10 in a television interview that Atlantic Alliance soldiers have been present in Ukraine for over a decade, not in combat units but as instructors for the Ukrainian army. Pavel was referring to the
Yavoriv base, near the border with Poland, where an agreement between NATO and Kyiv has allowed 1,000 soldiers from 15 countries to pass through, according to Pavel. The Czech president stressed that military training programs on Ukrainian soil were active when
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014and during the Donbas war, initiated by pro-Russian separatists and supported by Moscow.