The atmosphere at a combined meeting of EU and NATO officials on Ukraine that took place in Paris on Monday was belligerent and featured not a single word of peace, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said, according to the pravda.sk news website, Paralel.Az reports citing TASS.

"The atmosphere was totally belligerent: to continue the war at all costs and do everything to make the war go on. I was very surprised that not a single word was said about some peace plan or a peace initiative. Yes, I can confirm that there are countries that are ready to send troops to Ukraine. There also are countries that say ‘never’ to that, and Slovakia is one of them. And there are some countries that say such ideas deserve consideration," Fico pointed out.

The prime minister emphasized that the Slovak government has called for establishing peace in Ukraine as soon as possible. "Our government is committed to peace and rejects a continuation of war, and it will not send weapons to Ukraine. We are focused only on civilian projects," Fico said.

The head of the Slovak cabinet announced that he would travel to the Czech capital of Prague on Tuesday to take part in a meeting of prime ministers of the Visegrad Group countries, which include Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. Slovak media outlets expect a difficult debate in Prague because the parties have sharply divergent approaches to the situation in Ukraine.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron said at a press conference after meeting with several heads of state and government on the issue of aid for Kyiv that the parties had discussed the possibility of Western countries dispatching their own troops to Ukraine but that no consensus position had been reached. However, Macron noted that nothing should be ruled out in the future.