“We are not at war with Russia,” Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said earlier this week. Assuming Mr Tajani was speaking on behalf not only of Italy but Nato as a whole, that was a relief – but only temporarily. For there has been such an alarming escalation both in words and revelations in the past few days that it is beginning to look as though the military alliance is sliding inexorably towards all-out conflict with Russia.
Mr Tajani was responding to statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron after he hosted a conference of western leaders to rally support for Ukraine on Monday. There was “no consensus” about sending ground troops to Ukraine, said Mr Macron, but “nothing should be ruled out. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war”.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico confirmed that this had been discussed. “There are countries that are ready to send their own soldiers to Ukraine, there are countries that say never – Slovakia is among them – and there are countries that say that this proposal should be considered,” he said.
The US and Germany were among states who then hurriedly reiterated that they would not be putting boots on the ground in Ukraine, but the very fact that it was discussed on Monday and that Mr Macron has explicitly not ruled it out is a huge shift, and a very unwelcome one to all those horrified by the prospect of a wholly unnecessary shooting war between Nato and Russia.
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A soldier of the Ukrainian National Guard holds his position in the Serebryan Forest, in temperatures of -15°C in January 2024, in Kreminna, Donetsk Oblast. Getty Images -
Classmates play with rifles made from Lego blocks after school, in Vysokopillya, December 2023. Getty Images -
Leonid, a 38-year-old Ukrainian soldier suffering from severe mental trauma, cranial trauma and shrapnel wounds, does his physical training session at a psychiatric hospital in Kyiv, in October 2023. Getty Images -
Gravediggers make new graves for the victims of a recent Russian missile strike, at Hroza cemetery, in October 2023. Getty Images -
Oleksander, suffering from a hand injury, relaxes during a speleotherapy session, an alternative medicine respiratory therapy, at a rehabilitation center for soldiers in Kyiv, in October 2023. Getty Images -
Volodymyr assists his wife Anastasia, as she has contractions before the birth of their first baby, at a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia, in September 2023. Ukraine’s birth rate since the start of the war the country's birth rate has plummeted by 28 per cent. Getty Images -
Friends and relatives mourn the death of fighter pilot Andrii Pilshchykov, 30, who was killed along with two other pilots in a mid-air plane crash in Kyiv, in August 2023. Getty Images -
Ukrainian recruits salute the flag as they attend a commemorative service marking Ukraine's Independence Day, in August 2023, in a training camp in the south of England. Getty Images -
Damage from a missile that hit the Chernihiv Regional Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre, killilng seven people, in August 2023. Getty Images -
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak to the media at the Nato Summit in July 2023, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Getty Images -
People wait for a transfer on a pontoon in a flooded area as the result of the Kakhovka dam destruction in June 2023 in Afanasiivka village, Mykolaiv region. Getty Images -
State workers and Ukrainian military personnel inspect the crater left behind by a missile strike in Dnipro, in May 2023. Getty Images -
A grad missile is launched on the Donetsk fron tline in April 2023. Getty Images -
A Ukrainian sniper with the 28th Brigade moves to a fighting position in a front-line trench facing Russian troops in March 2023 outside of Bakhmut. Getty Images -
A damaged bust of Vladimir Lenin lies in the street in March 2023 in in the strategic town of Lyman. Getty Images -
A member of Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade fires a rocket-propelled grenade at Russian positions near Marinka in February 2023. Reuters -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses MPs in Westminster Hall, London, in February 2023. Getty Images -
Destroyed buildings 32km west of the front lines in Donetsk in January 2023. Getty Images -
An anti-aircraft gun in January 2023 fires at Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk. Reuters -
Destruction in the village of Bohorodychne, Donetsk, in January 2023. AFP -
A Ukrainian artilleryman discards an empty shell on the outskirts of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, in December 2022. AFP -
Children receive presents from a Ukrainian soldier dressed as Santa on Christmas Eve 2022 in Sloviansk. Getty Images -
More than 1,000 missiles and rockets fired by Russian forces collected for cataloguing in Kharkiv in December 2022. Getty Images -
The Metro provides shelter as Russia launches another missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in December 2022. Getty Images -
Children at a PE class in Kyiv after Russia abandoned its attempt to seize the capital in November 2022. Getty Images -
A sniper searches for Russian positions on the bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson in November 2022. Getty Images -
Graffiti by Banksy on a wall among the debris in Borodyanka in November 2022. Getty Images -
Ukrainian flags flutter around graves in a cemetery for soldiers killed in action in Kharkiv in October 2022. Getty Images -
Parts of a drone, which Ukrainian authorities said was Iranian-made, after a Russian strike in Kyiv in October 2022. Reuters -
An elderly woman is helped across a damaged bridge in Bakhmut in October 2022. Getty Images -
Fuel tanks ablaze on damaged sections of the Kerch bridge in Crimea, in October 2022. Reuters -
A destroyed bridge makes crossing the Donets river difficult, in Staryi Saltiv, east of Kharkiv, in September 2022. AFP -
Firefighters at a thermal power plant in Kharkiv damaged by a Russian missile strike in September 2022. Reuters -
Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr with his daughter Nikole at Lviv railway station in August 2022. Getty Images -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then-British prime minister Boris Johnson read a plaque in Kyiv in August 2022 dedicated to the latter for his support. Getty Images -
Destroyed Russian military equipment on Khreshchatyk street in Kyiv. The materiel was turned into an open-air military museum ahead of Ukraine's Independence Day on August 24. AFP -
Shakhtar Donetsk v Metalist Kharkiv kicks off the Ukrainian Premier League season in August 2022 amid fears of bomb and missile alerts. EPA -
Ukrainian servicemen fire an American-made 155mm M777 howitzer in July 2022 in the Kharkiv area. EPA -
A bomb crater on the Antonovsky bridge across the Dnipro river in Kherson, July 2022. AFP -
Maksym and Andrii with plastic guns at a 'checkpoint' they set up while playing in Kharkiv, July 2022. AP -
Ukrainian troops on Snake Island in June 2022. Reuters -
A woman evacuated from an area of conflict in June 2022 contemplates what the next move might be. AP -
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Kyiv in June 2022. Getty Images -
Graves in Irpin cemetery, May 2022. Getty Images -
A Ukrainian soldier trapped within the besieged Azovstal Iron and Steel Works complex in Mariupol in May 2022. Reuters -
The wreckage of a Russian helicopter in a bomb-cratered field in Biskvitne, May 2022. Getty Images -
A Ukrainian army officer inspects a grain warehouse shelled by Russian forces in May 2022 near Novovorontsovka, Kherson. Getty Images -
A boy from Mariupol arriving at an evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia in May 2022. Getty Images -
A Russian serviceman on guard outside Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in May 2022. AFP -
Oksana searches for salvageable items on the destroyed second floor of her home in Hostomel, April 2022. Getty Images -
A floral memorial wall in Lviv for Ukrainian civilians killed during the Russian invasion, April 2022. Getty Images -
People fleeing Lviv, eastern Ukraine, in April 2022, wait for a bus that will take them to Poland. Getty Images -
A Russian soldier patrols a bombed Mariupol theatre in April 2022, as Moscow intensified its campaign to take the strategic port city. AFP -
A Ukrainian celebrates success in Hostomel in April 2022. Getty Images -
Julia Palovskaya reads to children during an air raid drill in the basement shelter at a preschool in Lviv, April 2022. Getty Images -
Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Bucha in April 2022, where hundreds of bodies were found in the street and it was claimed the Russian leadership was responsible for killing civilians. AFP -
Oleh Smolin, 23, who suffered leg injuries from Russian shelling in April 2022, in hospital in Chuhuiv. Getty Images -
Fleeing refugees arrive at the border train station of Zahony, Hungary, in March 2022. Getty Images -
A father says goodbye to his daughter on an evacuation train about to leave Odesa in March 2022. AFP -
February 24 will be a year since Russia started the Ukraine war. The National picks out the most powerful images from the conflict. AFP -
Ukrainians under a destroyed bridge as they try to cross the Irpin river on the outskirts of Kyiv in March 2022. AP -
People cram into Kyiv station to catch trains to Poland or to western parts of Ukraine, shortly after the initial invasion in February 2022. Getty Images -
A demonstration in support of Ukraine in Trafalgar Square, London, February 2022 . Getty Images -
Russian army vehicles in Armyansk, Crimea, in February 2022. AFP -
Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 25, 2022, in a video on Facebook. He said 'we are all here', shortly after the Russian invasion began. AFP -
A residential building damaged by a missile strike in Kyiv in February 2022. Getty Images -
A metro station in Kyiv in February 2022, crowded with people trying to escape the invasion. AFP -
A police officer addresses people gathered to protest against the invasion of Ukraine, in central Saint Petersburg, Russia, February 2022. AFP -
A protester in support of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, in February 2022. Getty Images -
Ukrainian soldiers prepare to repel an attack in Ukraine's Lugansk region on February 24, 2022. AFP -
Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on February 24, 2022, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion. AFP -
A mass exodus from Kyiv after pre-offensive missile strikes by Russian armed forces on February 24, 2022. Getty Images -
Security personnel inspect the remains of a shell in Kyiv on February 24, 2022, soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine. AFP -
CCTV footage shows Russian military equipment crossing a Crimea border checkpoint on February 24, 2022. AFP -
Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin early on February 24, 2022, when he announced a 'military operation' in Ukraine. AFP
Mr Macron’s words came only one day after a report in The New York Times laid bare just how much short of actually firing on Russian forces the US has been doing to support Ukraine and the anti-Kremlin leadership that took power after the Maidan Revolution of 2014.
Not only have they built 12 spy bases along the border with Russia and trained and equipped legions of special forces, CIA officers in Ukraine played such an important role in relaying intelligence during the invasion in 2022 that a former Ukrainian intelligence chief told the paper that “without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians”, and, according to the report, “the Biden White House authorised spy agencies to provide intelligence support for lethal operations against Russian forces on Ukrainian soil”.
This is information that would normally have been kept secret. It has not been leaked. It has clearly been deliberately briefed, presumably in part to put pressure on Republicans in the US Congress who are not keen to vote for another $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. The message is: this is already America’s war – so you had better make sure you continue to fund it. At the same time, although most of this will not be news to Moscow, to reveal this so publicly is a huge provocation on the part of the US. As the Ukrainian intelligence official put it: “Are [the CIA] pulling triggers? No. Are they helping with targeting? Absolutely.”
Nato states have been strenuously maintaining that they are not at war with Russia. If I was a Russian, and I read this report, I’m not sure I’d agree.
The former US Department of Defence official Stephen Bryen also claims that there are so many “volunteers” – divided into technically trained weapons operators, intelligence and tactical advisers and frontline fighters – from Nato countries currently in Ukraine that it “is making it difficult for Nato states to maintain plausible deniability. While the Nato countries say they oppose sending troops, a case can be made they have already done so”.
This is mission creep on steroids, and it ought to be exceptionally worrying. Mr Macron conceded the depth of the change when he said that “people used to say give them just sleeping bags and helmets”, as there was, initially, prudent concern over supplying high-grade war supplies to Ukraine that could be used against Russian armed forces. Back in 2022, Mr Macron also took a more moderate line, saying: “We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.”
But now all sense of restraint seems to have been lost, as does Nato’s remembrance of the fact that it is supposed to be a defensive alliance, and that Ukraine is not a member.
The prospect that Mr Macron seems to be edging towards – and not him alone, according to Slovakia’s Mr Fico – could not be more serious. It is, as former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen put it, “taking a further step towards belligerence, posing an existential risk to 70 million French people”. That is no exaggeration. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that if Nato troops were sent to Ukraine, we would need to talk not of the “probability” but the “inevitability” of conflict.
Are Mr Macron and other leaders prepared to make Paris, London and other European cities targets? Has anyone thought of consulting the peoples of Nato states? And what of Russia itself? Or have Russians been so thoroughly demonised that the West does not care if the grand boulevard of Nevsky Prospekt or the glories of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg are wrecked in the catastrophe that war between Nato and Russia, both nuclear-armed, would be?
I cannot think that anyone who has spent any time in that country or who has any respect for its people’s vast contributions in the fields of art, music, literature, science and philosophy (to name a few) could so blithely contemplate a path that could spiral to a head-on clash between Nato and Russia.
There is no doubt that the invasion has wrought terrible devastation on Ukraine. But that is another matter, and one that requires urgent diplomacy. The question now is why a Nato that was so cautious – rightly so, in my opinion – in early 2022, is now so far down the slippery slope that it may arguably already have provided Moscow with a casus belli, while Mr Macron refuses to rule out a further move that no country in Russia’s position could fail to see as a declaration of war.
Such a conflagration was the stuff of nightmares for the generations who grew up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. It should remain unthinkable today.
