NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on March 1 that NATO would not send troops or fighter jets to Ukraine to support the Ukrainian government.
Stoltenberg met with Polish President Andrzej Duda that day, followed by a joint press conference. "NATO does not intend to be involved in the conflict and therefore will not send troops into Ukraine or move aircraft into Ukrainian airspace," Stoltenberg told a news conference.
Stoltenberg demanded that Russia immediately end its military operations, withdraw its troops from Ukraine and begin diplomatic engagement to defuse the crisis. He said NATO is a defensive alliance that does not seek conflict with Russia, but will be defensively prepared and has stepped up its deployment on NATO's eastern flank.
Duda said Poland would not send warplanes to Ukraine because doing so would be an "armed intervention". "NATO is not a party to the conflict. We are giving Ukraine humanitarian aid, but we will not fly any aircraft into Ukrainian airspace."
