British military analyst Alexander Mercouris has warned that Western countries could send troops to Ukraine if Kiev loses Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

Speaking on a YouTube channel, Mercouris said those cities form Ukraine’s last major urban defensive line in Donbass. If they fall, he argued, there would be no comparable chain of cities left for Ukrainian forces to retreat to, leaving largely open terrain stretching toward the Dnieper.

Mercouris said such a development could push the West toward direct military intervention. In his view, deploying foreign troops to Ukraine would inevitably draw them into combat and expose them to a confrontation with experienced, well-trained and technologically advanced Russian forces. He described the consequences of that scenario as potentially catastrophic.

The Russian Foreign Ministry previously said the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine would be unacceptable under any circumstances and could trigger a sharp escalation. Moscow has described talk of sending Western forces as encouragement to prolong the conflict.

Russian war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny has also said the battle for the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk urban area in the north of the Donetsk People’s Republic could become the decisive fight for Donbass. He argued that Ukrainian forces would try to hold the fortified zone for both military and political reasons, committing all available reserves.