Former NATO Secretary General: It is not up to Putin to decide whose troops to be in Ukraine

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary General from 2009 to 2014 and former Prime Minister of Denmark, expressed this opinion in a comment to Ukrinform.

“What you need now are ironclad, binding guarantees for Ukraine. Backed up by a military presence on Ukrainian soil. Because Putin does not respect anything else. So what we do need is a European reassurance force deployed to Ukraine, backed up by the United States,” Rasmussen stated.

Under international law, the Ukrainian government is entitled to request the deployment of allied troops. That is all. Ukraine has already done so, he recalled.

At the same time, the former NATO Secretary General believes that this should not be an Alliance mission. However, he noted that partners should deploy troops in Ukraine, including from NATO countries.

“So, obviously, we can, and I think we should, deploy troops also from NATO countries in Ukraine, and we should not make that part of the peace deal, if a peace deal is realistic with Putin. Because we should not even discuss that issue with Putin. It is not for him,” he emphasized.

Commenting on Russia's demand for security guarantees, the former NATO secretary general noted that the Alliance has never attacked Russia and has no intention of doing so, so, in fact, he does not object to providing security guarantees to Russia.

“But first and foremost, we should work on security guarantees for Ukraine. Ireland had security guarantees. And not paper security guarantees like the old Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where Russia gave security guarantees to Ukraine. As you all know, they broke them,” Rasmussen emphasized and noted that some countries, such as Ireland, had security guarantees.

The former head of the Alliance has no doubts about NATO's future. However, he is convinced that a new, more European NATO is needed, created through the Coalition of the Willing.

As reported by Ukrinform, President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that, among all the documents necessary to end the war, security guarantees for Ukraine must be signed first.