Italy warns NATO presence in Ukraine could trigger WWIII

Rome: Deploying troops of the NATO bloc to the battlefields in Ukraine might result in an all-out global conflict, effectively a Third World War, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has cautioned. He has ruled out any possibility that his country’s forces will somehow end up deployed to support Kiev’s fight against Moscow.

The minister made the remarks during an interview on the sidelines of the LetExpo show in Verona. Asked about the prospect of NATO troops ending up in such a deployment, Tajani spoke out against the idea.

“I think that NATO shouldn’t enter Ukraine. It would be a mistake. We need to help Ukraine defend itself, but entering the country to wage war against Russia means risking World War Three,” the diplomat stated.

Tajani ruled out any possibility of Italy’s own troops ending up in Ukraine. Asked about other NATO nations sending their troops to prop up Kiev in its fight against Moscow, particularly France, the minister said he hoped “it doesn’t happen”.

The statements from Tajani come after French President Emmanuel Macron again brought up the topic of sending Western soldiers to Ukraine, in a fresh interview with broadcasters TF2 and France 2.

Macron bluntly described Russia as France’s “adversary”, insisting, at the same time, that Paris has not been “waging war on Russia” but merely “supporting” Kiev in the conflict. Regarding the potential troop deployment, he refused to say anything concrete, insisting he wanted to maintain a “strategic ambiguity” and that he had his own “reasons not to be precise”.

The prospect of sending Western troops into Ukraine was first mulled by the French president in late February, when he said the idea could not be “excluded” entirely. The remarks prompted a wave of denials from fellow members of the US-led bloc, with its major participants repeatedly rejecting the idea. Minor states of the alliance, however, including new member Finland, backed Macron’s take on the issue.