Russia is repeating claims that the West plans to partition Ukraine following continued calls by France to send troops to the country to fight Russia’s invasion.
French President Emmanuel Macron “has continued to issue statements regarding the possible deployment of [European] troops to Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on March 13.
“Macron’s statements—and those of other political figures from NATO states—have to do with the partition of Ukraine as they see it,” she told reporters.
Last month, the French leader surprised many observers when he suggested that European Union member-states could send troops to Ukraine to help fight Russian forces.
“Nothing should be ruled out,” he said at a Feb. 26 meeting of EU leaders in Paris.
Last week, Mr. Macron went even further, telling French opposition leaders that Paris should have “no limits” in its approach to Russia’s two-year invasion.
Other leading allies of Kyiv—including the United States, the UK, and Germany—have all since distanced themselves from the notion of putting boots on the ground in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, Mr. Macron’s proposal has been welcomed by certain quarters.
Last week, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne raised the idea at a meeting in Lithuania with his Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian counterparts. All three Baltic States, which are longstanding NATO members, share borders with Russian Federation territory.
At the meeting, French proposals for deploying personnel to Ukraine were warmly received, with Baltic officials reportedly thanking Paris for “thinking outside the box.”
On the same day, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said during a panel discussion in Warsaw that the idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine was “not unthinkable.” His assertion coincided with similar remarks by Petr Pavel, president of the Czech Republic, which—like Poland—has been a NATO member since 1999.
“From the point of view of international law and the UN Charter, there would be nothing to prevent NATO member-states troops ... from assisting in the work in Ukraine,” Mr. Pavel said in televised comments on March 8.
The Czech leader made the remarks only days after meeting with Mr. Macron, who made a state visit to Prague on March 5.
Alleged Polish Designs
According to Moscow, the upsurge in talk about troop deployments isn’t so much about fighting Russia as it is about carving up western Ukraine in the event of a Russian victory.“This is another staged show; an alleged confrontation with Russia,” Ms. Zakharova said.
She claimed that in the face of Kyiv’s looming defeat, NATO states have begun discussing how to “divide up what’s left of Ukraine between themselves.”
“This is why they [Western leaders] are unwilling to grant Ukraine full NATO membership,” Ms. Zakharova said.
“Letting Ukraine join NATO would mean that all NATO members would have to recognize its borders—and they’re not all ready to do that,” she added.
She was referring to Ukraine’s failure last year, at a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, to obtain a formal invitation to join the alliance. Instead, Kyiv was assured NATO support in the form of bilateral “security guarantees” with individual members, several of which have since been signed.
Without naming the states in question, Ms. Zakharova claimed that Kyiv’s NATO-aligned neighbors “are ready to occupy Ukraine and divide it.”
“Political leaders in these countries are openly talking about this,” she added.
While she didn’t provide evidence for her assertions, Moscow has made similar claims in the past.
Last summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Poland of harboring longstanding territorial ambitions in Ukraine. Warsaw, he claimed, sought to establish a NATO-backed “coalition” with which it hoped to occupy portions of western Ukraine under the guise of “peacekeepers.”
“If Polish units enter [the western Ukrainian region of] Lviv or other Ukrainian regions, they will remain there,” Mr. Putin said.
Poland sits to the west of Ukraine, with which it shares a roughly 330-mile border. The Russian leader went on to note that Polish military units had briefly occupied Lviv in the immediate wake of World War I.
At the time, Polish officials said Mr. Putin’s assertions were merely intended to “foster distrust between Ukraine and Poland.”
The U.S. State Department also was quick to dismiss Mr. Putin’s claims.
“There’s only one country in the region that has demonstrated a willingness to invade its neighbors,” a State Department spokesman said at the time.
“And that’s Russia, not Poland,” he said.
In a March 13 interview with Russian state media, Mr. Putin repeated his earlier claims about Warsaw’s alleged territorial designs.
“If Polish troops enter Lviv or other Ukrainian territories, they will stay there,” he said. “They will stay there forever.”
State Department officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment regarding the Russian Foreign Ministry’s latest assertions.
