FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron’s Monday statement that nothing was ruled out at a summit of Western countries on the Ukraine crisis, including sending European troops to Ukraine, has made a splash around the world.

Other key members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, quickly threw cold water on the idea.

It is not only the brutality of the battlefield in Ukraine that has been displayed over the past more than two years, which deters them, but also the dire consequences that it would have — which Moscow has repeatedly warned of. Not to mention the difficulty these Western governments would be confronted in selling such an idea to the public at home, as more and more voices in these countries are asking why the money being spent on Ukraine is not being used to help the growing number of their own homeless people.

Macron’s words have highlighted how gung ho Western governments have become in pushing Ukraine to carry on fighting. He pointed out that Western countries have gradually increased their support to levels unthinkable when the war began. “The people that said ‘never ever’ today were the same ones who said never ever planes, never ever long-range missiles, never ever trucks. They said all that two years ago,” he said.

Although that is what has happened, it has been a tacit consensus among most Western leaders that as long as Russia does not go beyond Ukrainian borders to enter their territories, their troops will not get involved in the fighting.

Sending troops to Ukraine is still generally regarded as being a step too far, as that would signify an escalation of the Ukraine conflict from a regional one to a continent-wide war. They want to debilitate Russia without putting themselves in danger, and are happy for Ukraine to act as their proxy.

While the Ukrainians are paying with their lives, Western countries are haggling over which weapons should be provided for fear of angering Russia or overdrawing their own budget, and how the burden will be shared.

That’s why the Ukrainians have always been in a fraught state in the conflict, even if the West has gradually increased its material support. Kyiv is battling on two fronts — on the battlefield against Russia and in a PR war to squeeze ever more out of its Western supporters.

With US$60 billion worth of U.S. funding for Ukraine withheld by Republicans in the Congress, the burden has now shifted to Europe to help arm Ukraine.

Western governments hope to bolster Ukraine’s fighting abilities up to a point in order to keep Russia mired in the conflict and deplete its strength. However, they are wary of public backlash and the potential for their own soldiers to become casualties, which could threaten their political standing. The Ukraine crisis has cost enough lives. It can and should be resolved through peace talks.(China Daily)