© Ukraine MoD/FacebookImage of Russian troops in Ukraine.
According to Colonel Markus Reisner, the military strategist of the Austrian Ministry of Defence, Ukraine does not need NATO soldiers, as they are already there on the frontlines as mercenaries.
In a video posted on the Intel republic Telegram channel, the Austrian can be seen and heard giving his view on the situation. Reisner's remark came in response to a question posed during a press conference at the AIES Institute. One of the journalists asked him who would be managing the proposed transfer of tanks to Ukraine - NATO servicemen or Ukrainians.
Reisner replied that if the military from Austria or NATO countries retired from service and became mercenaries, then they could no longer be considered representatives of the armies of their states.
He explained that the serviceman takes off his uniform, signs a contract and goes to Ukraine - now he is not a soldier, for example, of the Austrian armed forces, but a contract mercenary. In his opinion, there are a large number of mercenaries on the territory of Ukraine and not soldiers of the alliance.
Earlier, Viktor Zolotov, the head of the Russian Guard, announced an increase in the number of mercenaries from European countries fighting on the side of the armed forces of Ukraine. These mercenaries have considerable experience of participating in armed conflicts in various countries of the world, as well as relevant training he suggested.
Last December, Andrei Marochko, an officer of the People's Militia of the LPR, claimed that he had proof that mercenaries from more than 30 countries are fighting on the side of the Ukrainian military.
According to him, most of the conversations recorded by intelligence networks were in English with various dialects, along with some in the German, French, Italian and Polish languages.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted that he had previously spoken to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron about the Minsk agreements and said he had no plans to implement them.
"As for Minsk in general, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel: we cannot introduce it this way," Zelenskyy said in an interview published by the Spiegel newspaper on Thursday.
Zelenskyy admitted that he said the same thing to Russian President Vladimir Putin at their first and last meeting in the Normandy format in 2019.
“I told him the same thing I told the other two. They were surprised and replied: "If we had known in advance that you would change the meaning of our meeting, there would have been problems before the summit," added Zelensky. He said that the Ukrainian side only used the agreement to exchange prisoners of war.
Merkel (who was German chancellor from 2005 to 2021) previously said that "the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time" to strengthen itself.
Hollande, who was French president from 2012 to 2017, later agreed with Merkel that the Minsk agreements had given the Kiev regime time to strengthen.
Both attended the Normandy Quartet summit, where they agreed on measures to implement the Minsk agreements. During a visit to Kiev in late January, Boris Johnson said that the Norman format of talks on Ukraine was a "diplomatic imitation".
Russia sent troops to Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev's failure to implement the Minsk agreements, which are supposed to give Donetsk and Luhansk regions special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev's main aim was to use the ceasefire to buy time and "build strong armed forces".
Moscow is demanding that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive was completely unjustified.