It was the right decision not to send Western troops to assist Kiev, Jens Stoltenberg has insisted

NATO will not send troops to Ukraine as it could lead to a direct clash with Russia, the bloc's former secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in September that Moscow would consider any unauthorized Western military personnel in Ukraine as "legitimate targets." The "dragging of Ukraine into NATO was one of the causes of the conflict" between Moscow and Kiev, he stressed.

In an interview with The Times on Saturday, Stoltenberg recalled that NATO members made two key decisions during a meeting in Brussels after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.

"One was to step up our support for Ukraine, as we did. The other was to do what we could to prevent this war from escalating beyond Ukraine and become a full-scale war between Russia and NATO," he said.

The former NATO chief cited then-US President Joe Biden, who stated at the time that "we will not risk a third world war for Ukraine."

According to Stoltenberg, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky also understood that. "He called me from a bunker in Kiev... and he said: 'I accept you are not sending in NATO ground troops, though I disagree. But please close the airspace,'" he said.

Stoltenberg said he denied the request to shut down airspace over fears of escalation, but described it as "extremely painful" to end the call that way. Later in the conflict, Zelensky continued to urge NATO to put boots on the ground.

Stoltenberg admitted that there is an "element of contradiction" when NATO says it wants Kiev to prevail but refuses to deploy its own troops to Ukraine and only focuses on arms deliveries. He added, however, that he believes this is "the right approach."

The bloc needs to supply even more weapons to Ukraine to "make it stronger on the battlefield" so that Moscow agrees to a ceasefire along the current contact line proposed by Kiev and the West, Stoltenberg insisted.

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Russia has rejected the idea of a truce, saying that Ukraine and its NATO backers will only use it to rearm and set up new defense lines. According to Moscow, the conflict requires a permanent solution that would address its root causes.