Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested 200,000 international troops would be required to enforce any peace settlement. Photo / Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested 200,000 international troops would be required to enforce any peace settlement. Photo / Getty Images
Germany is likely to reject British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine.
Germany is likely to reject Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to deploy a European peacekeeping force to Ukraine, throwing the proposals into disarray.
As European leaders prepared to meet on Monday afternoon in Paris, a split emerged. The UK and France were set to propose sending soldiers to Kyiv, with Germany and Poland more likely to not participate. Other countries, including Italy and Norway, are so far undecided.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Starmer announced he was “ready and willing” to put British boots on the ground to enforce any peace deal.
The talks came as the US and Russia’s top diplomats prepared to meet in Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for a high-level summit between Trump and Putin.
The US State Department has sent a survey to European capitals asking for information on what weapons and peacekeeping troops they could provide to Kyiv after an end to the fighting.
Diplomats and officials believe Germany is unlikely to join any European peacekeeping efforts that could follow a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Poland has ruled itself out of such a mission because Warsaw’s troops are committed to protecting Nato’s eastern flank.
Evacuated Ukrainian civilians at a temporary shelter in Pavlohrad. Photo / Getty Images
Both Hungary and Slovakia are also highly unlikely to join given their governments’ close ties with the Kremlin.
Many European nations, such as Spain, Italy and Norway, have remained on the fence, leaving some capitals despondent over the possibility of a peacekeeping operation.
“The whole discussion is moot without both Germany and Poland’s participation,” a diplomatic source said.
Before the talks in Paris, Jose Manuel Albares, Spain’s Foreign Minister, said: “Nobody is currently considering sending troops to Ukraine. Firstly, because peace is still very far away and for one reason only: Vladimir Putin.”
Olaf Scholz, Germany’s Chancellor, has remained cautious on the prospect of a European peacekeeping force since it was demanded by Washington as part of the peace talks.
In December, he told the Bundestag: “It is out of the question for us to send troops or German soldiers to Ukraine in the current situation.
“I have always made that clear and that remains the case.”
At a Nato meeting last week, the US Defence Secretary made it clear Europe would have to bear the responsibility for upholding any peace deal negotiated by Washington.
Hegseth said the European boots on the ground would not be covered by the Western military alliance’s Article 5, which states an attack on one is an attack on all its members.
Britain became the first European military power to announce it was prepared to deploy troops to Ukraine.
“The UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine. This includes further support for Ukraine’s military – where the UK has already committed £3 billion a year until at least 2030,” Starmer wrote in the Telegraph.
“But it also means being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary. I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm’s way.”
One potential option could be for a UK-led deployment of the Joint Expeditionary Forces (JEF), a coalition of 10 northern European Nato nations.
A coalition of about 40,000-50,000 troops could be created from the JEF’s members, which include the Netherlands, the Scandinavians and Baltics, and France for deployment in Ukraine.
It is unlikely such a force could be deployed on the contact line between the heavily armed militaries of Russia and Ukraine.
But it could be stationed behind the line inside Ukraine to offer reassurance to Kyiv that Western forces would assist if Moscow’s forces broke the terms of any ceasefire.
“It doesn’t have to be hundreds of thousands of troops or cover a 1200km contact line. Where it is deployed, and in what role, is more important than the overall size,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, wrote on social media.
“The force does not need to be everywhere. It needs to be in a country with battalions deployed on maybe four operational directions, and sufficient mobility to redeploy as necessary along the front.”
The idea of deploying Western troops to Ukraine was first floated by Macron last year, but was ruled out as too risky and impractical by most at the time.
Responding to the French President at the time, Scholz said: “To put it bluntly, as German Chancellor, I will not be sending any soldiers from our army to Ukraine.”
He also refused to offer long-range Taurus missiles to the Ukrainian Air Force because he said the system, which has a range of 480km, would require German boots on the ground to operate.
Berlin has always maintained a cautious approach to supporting Ukraine, despite being one of the war-torn nation’s most generous backers.
Scholz has mostly opted to play it safe because of fears wider support for Kyiv could drag the West into a wider conflict with Russia.
However, Scholz is facing election defeat later this week to the centre-right CDU, which has been more supportive of sending troops and weapons to Ukraine.
The French President is expected to reaffirm his commitment to deploying Western troops to Ukraine at the meeting in Paris, which will also be attended by the leaders of Spain, Italy, Denmark, the EU and Nato.
Depleted militaries
It will probably require a multinational battle group to uphold peace along a ceasefire line more than 12,800km long.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s President, has suggested 200,000 international troops would be required to enforce any peace settlement.
It is unlikely that a European-only force would be able to muster enough troops to meet the Ukrainian leader’s demands.
Such a force would require American troops, who Zelenskyy has said are needed to make any peacekeeping mission credible.
Many of Europe’s militaries have been significantly depleted since the end of the Cold War.
Lord Dannatt, the Army’s chief of the general staff between 2006 and 2009, said Britain did not have the forces or equipment “to put a large force on to the ground for an extended period of time”.
Sir Ben Wallace, the former Defence Secretary, has previously told the Telegraph the British military would be unable to stand by its previous commitments as well as send troops to Ukraine.
The UK has troops committed to Nato, a battle group in Estonia, and Cyprus, which come on top of defending the country and training Ukrainian troops on Salisbury Plain.
On Monday, Wallace questioned whether the government’s plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP would be sufficient to sustain a force inside Ukraine.
“The extra spending is also vital to ensure any forces we may or may not send to Ukraine are properly protected and enabled. Not to do so is to send another hollow force and put British lives unnecessarily at risk,” he wrote on social media.
