Military expert Andrey Kolesnik said NATO troops would not be able to enter Ukrainian territory under any scenario.

He was commenting on a report by The Times about upcoming exercises involving Britain, France and Germany, during which the countries plan to rehearse the deployment of units from the so-called coalition of the willing to Ukraine.

Kolesnik told Gazeta.Ru that Moscow rules out such a scenario and that the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine would leave the underlying causes of the conflict unresolved.

He argued that the preparations point to a willingness among Kiev’s allies to escalate further. In his view, deploying alliance forces to Ukraine would lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. Kolesnik also said that if such troops were sent to Ukrainian territory, they would quickly come under attack from Russian forces.

Military exercises involving countries from the coalition of the willing are scheduled to take place in Poland in November. At least 1,500 troops from Britain, France and Germany are expected to participate, with Polish units joining later.

The forces plan to practice personnel deployment and logistics. British participation had earlier been confirmed by Defense Secretary Wes Streeting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that such exercises are aimed at drawing NATO countries more deeply into the Ukraine conflict.