"I have to tell you that there's a NATO decision in place which we support and this common decision of ours does not allow any ground troops to be deployed to Ukraine because that will be a violation of our common NATO decision," Szijjarto said.
Szijjarto noted that it is reassuring to him to see a vast majority of the European leaders, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, oppose the prospects of sending Western troops to Ukraine in light of Macron's statement. A deployment of Western troops to Ukraine would increase the chances of igniting a third world war, he added.
A deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine would make a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia inevitable, the Kremlin said. Russia needs to stay on alert as the current generation of European politicians do not have a self-preservation instinct, the Kremlin stated in response to Macron's remarks.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said Western leaders had discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and had neither reached a consensus on the matter or ruled out the possibility. The United States has since rejected the prospect of sending US troops to fight in Ukraine.
NATO member states must do their best to avoid a direct confrontation between the military alliance and Russia, Szijjarto said.
"We have to do our best in order to avoid any kind of direct confrontation between NATO and the Russian Federation," Szijjarto said, when asked about a leaked conversation between German military officers regarding a potential Taurus missile strike on the Crimean Bridge using a French fighter jet.
Last week, Margarita Simonyan — the editor-in-chief of RT and the Rossiya Segodnya media group — published a recording of the February 19 conversation between four German military officers. Germany has confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ruled out the possibility of supplying long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine and said that the government is investigating the leaked conversation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the content of the leaked audio recording points to direct involvement of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict.