The White House slapped down France’s suggestion NATO troops could fight in Ukraine

Joe Biden slaps down France’s suggestion NATO should send troops to help Kyiv fend off Russia as the Kremlin warns that would lead to World War III. 

US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. Picture: AFP.

The White House has ruled out sending troops to Ukraine to help fight Russia, slapping down a suggestion by French president Emmanuel Macron that has highlighted a growing rift among NATO allies over whether to escalate a war that Ukraine may not be able to win alone.

A day after the French leader said the sending of NATO troops to help Ukraine eject Russia from Crimea and the Donbass was a possibility that “could not be ruled out” the White House said President Biden “had been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine”.

The president believed the “path to victory” was for Congress to pass blocked military aid “so Ukrainian troops have the weapons and ammunition they need to defend themselves”, National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson said in a statement on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT).

The comment came as Joe Biden hosted the top four congressional leaders, Republican and Democrat, at the White House in part to urge them to pass a US$95 billion foreign aid bill, which includes around $60bn for Ukraine.

“I think the need is urgent … I think the consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire,“ Mr Biden said at the televised start of the meeting, which was mainly focused on avoiding the partial government shutdown that will occur within days without bipartisan agreement.

The US statement on troops came hours after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has come under intense criticism for not providing Ukraine long-range Taurus missiles that could hit deep within Russia, slapped down calls for NATO to escalate the war.

France's President Emmanuel Macron greets Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Picture: AFP.

“It is clear: there will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO,” he said in a statement in English and German on social media, a sentiment that was later echoed by Polish authorities.

The Kremlin said sending NATO troops to Ukraine would automatically trigger war between Russia and the US-led alliance, whose members have undertaken to come to each other’s aid in the event of an attack on any one of them.

“These countries must also evaluate and be aware of this, asking themselves whether this corresponds to their interests, as well as the interests of the citizens of their countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Calls to send NATO troops to Ukraine came amid an increasingly pessimistic prognosis for Ukraine’s efforts to expel Russia, whose forces have in recent months begun advancing west and claiming more Ukrainian territory after invading in February 2022.

The French president’s warning to Russia came after he hosted a meeting of around 20 pro-Ukraine European leaders in Paris to galvanise support for Kyiv as the frontline of the war, stable for over a year, had begun to crumble in Russia’s favour.

Russia President Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP.

Mr Macron pointed out that previous promises not to send tanks, planes and long-range missiles had been later disavowed in favour of providing additional help.

“People used to say give them just sleeping bags and helmets …. We must do whatever we can to obtain our objective,” the president said, triggering a chorus of condemnation from his domestic political opponents who oppose sending French troops.

Italy’s prime minister Georgia Meloni has taken a harder line on Russia too, declaring on a visit to Kyiv that “if Russia had not invaded Ukraine, in all likelihood Hamas would not have launched such an attack against Israel”, referring to Hamas’s murderous attack on Israel in October.

The emerging debate over sending NATO troops to jump start Ukraine’s war effort also followed a statement by the organisation’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, in recent days that Ukraine would join NATO, an eventuality Russia president Vladimir Putin has said triggered his invasion of Ukraine.

“It is not a question of if, but of when,” Mr Stoltenberg said at a press conference.

The taking of increasingly entrenched positions came as Ukraine’s parliament was considering a new conscription bill to boost troop numbers by at least 450,000 to continue the war, after President Zelensky revealed that his nation had lost 31,000 soldiers in the first two year war against Russia, compared to Russia’s 180,000.

The New York Times reported last week that the CIA had built at least 12 secret bases in Ukraine since 2014 to spy on Russia as part of a growing security relationship between the two nations in the lead up to Ukraine’s promised membership of NATO.