Russia warns of conflict with NATO if alliance sends troops to Ukraine

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New Delhi: The Kremlin issued a stern warning on Tuesday that it could lead to conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance if European NATO members deploy troops to join the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Will become inevitable.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has caused the most serious crisis in Russia’s relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. President Vladimir Putin has previously stressed the serious risks of a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday hinted at the possibility of European countries sending troops to Ukraine, although he stressed there is currently no consensus on the matter, Reuters reported.

However, NATO denied any such plans. “There are no plans for NATO combat troops to enter Ukraine,” a NATO official said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the importance of discussing the possible deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine and highlighted it as an important development. He cautioned that if NATO members actually sent troops to fight in Ukraine, it would lead to inevitable direct conflict.

“The fact of discussing the possibility of sending some contingents from NATO countries to Ukraine is a very important new element,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, Reuters reports.

“In that case, we would need to talk not about the possibility, but about the inevitability (of direct conflict),” he said.

Peskov urged Western countries to consider whether such a scenario serves the interests of their countries and citizens.

The mere discussion of a confrontation between Russia and NATO evokes Cold War anxieties, underscoring the dangerous nature of the situation as the West faces a resurgent Russia, decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Russia and the United States, the primary powers within NATO, have the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could potentially spark World War III, Reuters reports.