Author
Volodymyr Kravchenko
Columnist of the International Politics Department at ZN.UA
The idea of sending European peacekeeping troops to Ukraine is gradually becoming clear in the fog of uncertainty of diplomacy.
The confrontational behavior of the newly elected President of the United States of America, Donald Trump with European allies, the radical change of course in relations with Moscow and Kyiv, the displacement of Europe to the sidelines of the geopolitical scene while simultaneously shifting responsibility for ensuring Ukraine’s security to it have worried Europeans and at the same time pushed them to take active actions. In turn, seeking to stimulate partners, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his readiness to send British troops to Ukraine.
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“Europe is ready to take the initiative to provide security guarantees to Ukraine,” – stated the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), General Mark Rutte following an emergency meeting of the leaders the seven European Union countries and Great Britain on Monday in Paris. “The position of France and its partners is clear and united. We want a lasting and reliable peace in Ukraine. We support Ukraine and will take full responsibility for ensuring peace and security in Europe,” said French President Emmanuel Macron after the second Paris meeting on Wednesday. However, it is worth saying that their statements sound too optimistic. After all, in Paris, the political leaders of European countries showed the absence of a unified position.
It is important to emphasize the fact that, according to the British and international daily business newspaper The Financial Times, on Monday the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain spoke out against sending their soldiers to Ukraine, while France, Great Britain and Sweden expressed their readiness to send military units. At the same time, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni turned out to be a big skeptic. As reported by the French Press Agency, she stated that the idea of deploying Western peacekeepers in Ukraine is still quite questionable. In her opinion, sending troops to Ukraine is “the most difficult and least effective” way to ensure peace in Ukraine.
But the position of those opposed to sending peacekeeping contingents to Ukraine is not yet final. It should be noted that the entire situation and trends that have already developed will change more than once under the influence of agreements between the United States of America and the Russian Federation; Ukraine, the European Union and the United States of America; the countries of the European Union; Kyiv and Washington. The approaches of some countries will be transformed after their elections. And so, it is worth saying that when the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Olaf Scholz, states that the issue of peacekeepers should not be discussed until a lasting peace is established (!), then perhaps Berlin’s political leaders will change their views after the parliamentary elections on February 23.
Now is a time in the world when many plans are born and die.
As the British daily newspaper The Telegraph notes, on Monday in Paris, a British-French plan to create a “security force” was presented to participants in an emergency meeting. It is important to note that it involves the deployment of less than 30,000 peacekeeping troops under the command of European countries in Ukrainian cities, ports and other critical infrastructure facilities located far from the current front line. It should be emphasized that the military mission will rely on technical monitoring, including aircraft, drones and satellites.
Ukrainian airspace will be protected. In addition, it should be mentioned that (earlier The Times wrote that London is discussing the idea of using the fourth-generation Typhoon multirole fighter to patrol the skies over Ukraine after the end of the war and the signing of a peace treaty.) This is planned to be done in order to reopen Ukrainian airspace and allow commercial flights. There is also the idea that Naval patrol ships will also be sent to the Black Sea to monitor Russian threats to commercial shipping lanes.
It is also expected that the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will try to enlist the support of the newly elected President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, next week. According to The Telegraph, Keir Starmer will insist that American fighter jets and missiles be kept in Eastern Europe on standby in case the Russian Federation violates the ceasefire.
Well, for now, we don’t even have a ceasefire yet. But the important thing is that Europe is slowly realizing that soldiers will have to be sent to Ukraine if a peace agreement is signed.
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And here the opinion of the residents of the Federal Republic of Germany is indicative. Apart from that, according to a poll by the Forsa Institute, one of the leading market research and opinion polling companies in Germany, conducted in February, 49% of citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany support sending German troops to Ukraine as part of a possible peacekeeping contingent. It is worth noting that 44% of respondents are against this, and 7% of respondents abstained from answering. In addition to countries such as France and Great Britain, there are already countries in Europe today that are ready to risk the lives of their soldiers in order to prevent the Russian Federation from starting a war again. It is also important to emphasize the fact that the Dutch Parliament approved a resolution that the country can send peacekeepers if a ceasefire is signed. (However, it should be said that the decision will be made by the government, and the far-right Freedom Party PVV, which is part of the coalition, is threatening to block the sending of Dutch soldiers to Ukraine.) The head of the Swedish Foreign Ministry, Maria Malmer Stenergaard, also allowed for such a possibility for her country.
In order for the idea of sending a peacekeeping contingent to be realized, in addition to the consent of the European countries themselves, the consent of the Russian Federation will most likely also be required. In addition, it should be said that earlier the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations (UN) Vasily Nebenzya warned that a mandate is needed to deploy a peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine, that is, the legal powers of the Security Council of the United Nations (UN), “otherwise, if such a mandate is not presented, then any foreign military contingents sent to the combat zone will, from the point of view of international law, be ordinary combatants and a legitimate military target for our Armed Forces.”
It is worth noting that the political leaders of the Russian Federation have repeatedly voiced their position regarding the international military contingent. The essence of its position is that the appearance of troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the territory of Ukraine is unacceptable for the Russian Federation. On Tuesday, when American-Russian negotiations were held in Riyadh, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova again stated that the Russian Federation is against the deployment of Western military troops in Ukraine. According to her, “the best guarantee of security” for us will be a neutral status, refusal to participate in military blocs and nuclear weapons.
Such statements reflect the maximalist demand position of the Kremlin’s political leaders. Thus, it turns out that the rhetoric of the newly elected President of the United States of America Donald Trump works to split the West and this leads to the fact that the demands of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin at the negotiations will only grow, and at the same time the readiness to continue the war will only strengthen. In addition, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that according to intelligence data from the United States of America, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin still seeks to seize the entire territory of Ukraine, despite the commencement of negotiations with the administration of the newly elected President of the United States of America Donald Trump, and right now is not interested in actually signing a peace agreement.
But within the framework of the big deal, if President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin agrees to it, Russia’s approach may change under pressure from the United States of America. After all, it is worth saying that judging by the words of the newly elected President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, he “will not object at all” to sending European peacekeeping contingent to Ukraine. It is no coincidence that earlier the United States of America also sent questions to European governments, where, among other things, they were interested in their attitude to the “sending of armed forces of third countries” within the framework of a peace settlement.
As former Deputy Secretary of State of the United States of America Rose Gottemoeller believes, “President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin would like to establish a long-term, productive relationship with this administration. So, in this situation, he will have to be prepared to make concessions.” Obviously, in this case, the political leaders of the Russian Federation will try to blur this idea as much as possible, making its details not fully coordinated and precise. So thus, making the peacekeepers mere helpless observers. In addition, it must be said that the political leaders of the Russian Federation will also be satisfied with the option proposed by the head of the Pentagon Pete Hegseth, namely, according to this plan, peacekeeping contingent should be outside the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and not fall under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
For the political leaders of Kyiv, the deployment of a European peacekeeping contingent is one of the key components of ending the Russian-Ukrainian war. In addition, such a decision is also an important element of real deterrence of the Russian Federation from a new invasion. To what extent this instrument will become an effective guarantee of our security depends on the organization under which the mission will be, its mandate, that is, the legal authority of the countries participating in it, the number of peacekeepers, their deployment, financing, the presence of American soldiers in the peacekeeping contingent, and many other factors.
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From the point of view of the political leaders of Ukraine, peacekeepers should have heavy weapons and mandate, that is, the legal right to fire back, from a weapon, and not be limited to the functions of passive observers. It is also in our interests that the international contingent be deployed on the demarcation line. It is important to note the fact that Ukraine cannot be satisfied with France’s proposal to send peacekeepers not to the demarcation line, but to the Ukrainian rear: as the American daily business newspaper The Wall Street Journal writes, in this case the European military will play the role of “support forces”, supplying and training Ukrainian troops. It should be emphasized that the number of military contingents should be sufficient to respond to threats. In a commentary to the BBC Russian Service, former British military intelligence officer Frank Ledwidge noted that after the end of the conflict in Bosnia, the area of which is 11 times smaller than the territory of Ukraine, 60 thousand peacekeepers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were deployed, of which almost half were Americans. It is worth mentioning that at the peak of the operation in 1995-1996, the British contingent there reached a maximum of 11.5 thousand.
A contingent of 25-30 thousand military peacekeepers is extremely small, given the length of the front. It is important to note that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks about the need to deploy 200 thousand soldiers on the demarcation line. At the same time, Western experts argue that Europe today does not have such troops ready to be sent. But it is worth noting that Lawrence Freedman, a professor of military studies at King’s College London, believes that real deterrent forces usually require more than 100 thousand troops, taking into account regular rotations and emergency situations.
The optimal option for Ukraine would be a peacekeeping contingent consisting mainly of soldiers from European Union member states. In addition, the experience of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations shows that missions consisting of military personnel from African and Asian states are much less effective in implementing their mandate, that is, their legal powers, than units from Europe. But it is also worth noting that the Vice President of the United States of America, J.D. Vance, is right when he says that the peacekeeping contingent consisting only of Western military personnel will be less effective in containing the Russian Federation. Therefore, soldiers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Brazil may also be among the peacekeepers.
It is important to emphasize the fact that the main thing in the peacekeeping contingent is that Americans should be present there in any role. They should be present because their participation will influence the position of European skeptics: the military potential and political capabilities of the United States of America increase the chances of the operation being successful. In addition, it is worth noting that the presence of American soldiers is also a guarantee of non-attack on the peacekeepers. However, it is important to emphasize the fact that Washington is currently excluding the sending of its American soldiers. According to the newly elected President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, they are pursuing such a policy “because their country is very far away.” But theoretically, it must be said that Washington’s political leaders can still change their position. It is worth noting that for now the reading is still very uncertain. As the meeting in Paris showed, the process of making a decision in Europe on sending peacekeepers to Ukraine will not be quick and easy process. Thus, the final decision will depend on many factors, including how events develop on the battlefield of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the negotiations between the United States of America and the Russian Federation.
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Publish date : 2025-02-21 04:00:00
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