The presence of NATO troops in Ukraine "will not violate any international rules" if they do not take part in the fighting. This was stated by Czech President Petr Pavel, Euractiv reports.

He stated that after the annexation of Crimea, a mission of the Alliance countries of about a thousand foreign instructors had already been operating in Ukraine.

"From the point of view of international law and the UN Charter, nothing could prevent NATO troops, as well as, for example, civilians, from assisting in Ukraine. It should be remembered that after the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of part of Donbas, a NATO training mission was operating on Ukrainian territory, which at one time included more than 15 countries and consisted of about 1,000 people," Pavel said.

When asked about his position on sending NATO troops to Ukraine, Pavel replied: "I would certainly not refuse to discuss this issue. If we could agree with our allies that, for example, instead of training Ukrainian soldiers on the territory of NATO member states and deploying thousands of troops to, say, Poland or the Czech Republic, it would be much more reasonable to bring a few dozen instructors to Ukraine and train Ukrainian soldiers there."

In addition to training, he mentioned the maintenance of equipment in Ukraine. 

Pavel is confident that Russia will not respond in any way and will not attack NATO countries.