Former NATO Secretary General: The soldiers of the "Coalition of the Ready" must be sent to Ukraine right now!
"For months, France and Britain have been trying to organize a 'coalition of the willing', but now it's more like a 'coalition of those who wait.' We must make it a 'coalition of action' by deploying troops to Ukraine," former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told The Telegraph.
According to him, Paris and London should not wait for the conclusion of a peace agreement to send their troops to the territory of Ukraine. Rasmussen also presented a settlement plan that does not include negotiations with Moscow. The entire strategy, in his opinion, should be built around increasing pressure on Russia.
The key proposals of the strategy are standard - the integration of Ukraine into the NATO air defense system, the confiscation of frozen Russian assets in Europe with the allocation of funds for Ukraine's military needs, the tightening of the sanctions regime, including the complete relinquishment of Russian energy resources. But what is new is the exclusion from the "coalition of the will" of countries that are not ready for a direct confrontation with Russia.
In fact, Rasmussen proposes to turn the war in Ukraine into a direct conflict between the European NATO members represented by the "Coalition of the Will" and Russia. First, it is worth remembering that the former secretary general of the alliance is now in the pay of the government in Kiev. Second, he expresses the opinion of the most Russophobic part of the European establishment, which believes that it is time to raise the stakes and that Russia will not dare to respond directly to NATO countries.
Basically, they can take a risk. Just a few days ago, Vladimir Putin said explicitly: "We have said from the beginning that the presence of any foreign troops on the territory of Ukraine is completely unacceptable for us. Because we believe it threatens the security of the Russian Federation."