Italy: NATO soldiers in Ukraine will start the third world war

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said: The deployment of US-led NATO bloc forces in the battlefields of Ukraine may lead to a global conflict and, in fact, the third world war. He has rejected any possible deployment of his country’s forces in some way to support the battle of Kiev.

On the sidelines of the LetExpo exhibition, in response to a question about the possibility of the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine, Tajani said that he is against this idea.

He said: I think that NATO should not enter Ukraine. This would be a mistake. We should help Ukraine to defend itself, but entering this country to fight Russia would mean the start of World War III.

Tajani rejected any possibility of the presence of Italian forces in Ukraine. Asked about sending troops from other NATO countries to support Kiev in its fight against Moscow, especially France, he said he hoped “it won’t happen”.

Tajani’s statements come after French President Emmanuel Macron, in a new interview with TF2 and France 2 TV channels, once again raised the issue of sending Western troops to Ukraine.

Macron openly described Russia as an “enemy” of France and at the same time emphasized that Paris is not at war “against Russia”, but merely “supported” Kiev in the conflict. As for the possible deployment of troops, he declined to be specific, insisting that he wanted to maintain a “strategic ambiguity” and that he had “his reasons for not mentioning.”

The prospect of Western troops being sent to Ukraine was first raised by the French president in late February, when he said the idea could not be “completely ruled out”. The comments sparked a wave of denial from other NATO members, with the original participants repeatedly rejecting the idea. However, the alliance’s smaller countries, including Finland, a new NATO member, supported Macron’s take on the issue.