Emmanuel Macron broke the taboo this February.
NATO assists Ukraine in practically every possible area, from the supply of weapons and information on Russian targets, from the flight of enemy bombers to the training of thousands of Ukrainian troops in Europe.
But until the French president suggested it, no one had dared to propose that soldiers of the Atlantic Alliance take action to stop the Kremlin from its invasion.
Macron has not only opened a debate, his words have also served to confirm that there are already military personnel from NATO countries on Ukrainian soil, although without taking part in combat operations.
The Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, assured on March 8 at a conference in Warsaw that there were already representatives of the Atlantic Alliance in Ukraine.
“There are already NATO soldiers in Ukraine, and I want to thank the embassies who have taken this risk.
Unlike other politicians, I will not say what countries they are,” Sikorski said.
The last sentence was a criticism of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who at the end of February revealed that British and French soldiers are in Ukraine.
Scholz argued that his Government would not provide Kiev with its long-range Taurus missiles because it would require, as has happened with the British-French Storm Shadow / Scalp rockets, to send military technicians to program these weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) greets NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 16. Anadolu (Anadolu via Getty Images)
The presence of soldiers from NATO countries in Ukraine is nothing new.
Pentagon spokesman General Pat Ryder confirmed in October 2022 that the United States had military representatives assigned to oversee the supply of weapons.
In confidential Pentagon documents leaked in April 2023, the US Department of Defense indicated that five countries of the Atlantic Alliance - the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Lithuania and the Netherlands - had nearly a hundred special forces in their embassies in the country.
The Czech president, Petr Pavel, a retired general and former president of the NATO military committee, recalled in a television interview on March 10 that the soldiers of the Atlantic Alliance have been present in Ukraine for more than a decade, not in combat units, but as trainers of the Ukrainian army.
Pavel was referring to the Yavoriv base, near the border with Poland, where an agreement between NATO and kyiv has allowed a thousand soldiers from 15 countries to pass through it, according to Pavel.
The Czech president stressed that military training programs on Ukrainian soil were active when Russia annexed Crimea by force in 2014 and during the Donbas war, started by pro-Russian separatists and with the support of Moscow.
The Yavoriv base was bombed in March 2022. Ukrainian authorities indicated that 61 soldiers lost their lives, while Russia raised the number to 180, many of them foreign soldiers.
Informants in the field
EL PAÍS has interviewed multiple military sources, Ukrainian and EU countries, over the past two years who agree that no NATO army has participated in ground combat actions.
But they also agree that they do have informants on the ground to provide knowledge about the situation on the front, to identify the effectiveness of the weapons supplied but also possible problems in their use, in addition to detecting possible cases of corruption with the help provided.
Some of these unofficial informants are retired foreign military personnel who fight as volunteers in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
At least two sources, one American and one Ukrainian, affirm that Washington is especially active in controlling its assistance, with missions agreed between its Embassy and the Ukrainian authorities, but also in visits outside institutional channels.
Luke Coffey, a researcher at the Hudson Institute, a US center for analysis of international and defense policy, sees it as difficult for US military personnel to be moving freely through Ukraine: “I would be very surprised if US troops have freedom of movement to move around the country to monitor the situation.
I know that US Embassy staff even need a permit to go to Odessa.
And before 2022, American instructors were not allowed to go east of the Dnipro River, I doubt they can now.”
Olga Husieva, a researcher at the Institute of Security Policy at the University of Kiel, differs from Coffey and assumes that there are envoys from Ukraine's allied defense ministries collecting data on the ground.
According to their knowledge, they can obtain fundamental knowledge to improve the preparation of their armies and the use of their weapons;
They may also have the mission of ensuring that there are no weapons that end up on the black market, as happened after the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 of the Western coalition led by the United States.
“It is also no secret that there have been troop instructors in the country since the beginning of the invasion,” adds Husieva.
Husieva emphasizes that, above all, these are particular initiatives of the governments, although she highlights that there is coordination between the United States and the United Kingdom, and of these two, although to a lesser extent, with Poland and the Baltic countries.
This expert warns that Germany is being withdrawn from this cooperation due to fear of infiltration by Russian spies into its intelligence services.
Lukasz Maslanka, a researcher at the Polish Center for Eastern Studies, also believes that “there is probably coordination and mutual transmission of information, but each country makes its own decisions.”
Koffey concedes: “There may be limited, technical reasons for having NATO personnel on Ukrainian territory, but it should be avoided.
“Suppliing it with civilian professionals would be better.”
Husieva points out that the case of the Storm Shadow missiles cannot be the only one, and assumes that NATO instructors will be assigned to Ukraine when the first American F-16 fighters arrive this year.
She will also, she indicates, increase collaboration with the use of artificial intelligence to coordinate attacks.
For this researcher from the University of Kiel, in addition to the possible presence of engineers who monitor the entry into service of advanced weapons, it is always necessary for military personnel to be present.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself gave as an example on March 11 in
Le Monde
the possibility of French Caesar howitzers and German Leopard tanks being repaired and produced in Ukraine with inevitable military assistance on the ground.
Maslanka agrees with Husieva that the call by political leaders like Macron for the participation of NATO soldiers in Ukraine is above all a strategy to not be intimidated by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin: “It is about causing a dilemma for Putin and adding a new risk factor.”
Husieva adds that she sees it as “very possible” that a coalition of countries formed by the United Kingdom, Poland and the Baltic States will reach an agreement to be in Ukraine in the future.
Koffey, on the other hand, believes that it would be a serious mistake in the face of the Republican unblocking of US military aid: “There are many Republicans worried about the United States entering a new eternal war.
Ukraine supporters argue that will not be the case because there are no American troops fighting, and Macron counterproductively suggests that NATO troops could be deployed.”
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