The UK is ready to deploy troops to Ukraine to implement any peace deal. This is the first time the country has explicitly said it is considering deploying British peacekeepers to Ukraine.
This was stated by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
"I donʼt say this lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with the potential danger to British servicemen," he said.
According to him, the UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine and to have a "unique role" as a bridge between Europe and the US in the Ukrainian peace process.
Keir Starmer stressed that any role in supporting Ukraineʼs security helps ensure the security of the continent and the security of this country.
Europeʼs participation in the settlement of the war in Ukraine
After US President Donald Trump announced that during a phone call with Putin they agreed to immediately begin peace talks, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, Germany, and the European Union stressed in a statement that Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations to end the Russian-Ukrainian war.
During the Munich Security Conference, Trumpʼs special envoy Keith Kellogg said that Europe would not be physically at the negotiating table between Russia and Ukraine, but its interests would be taken into account. He added that one of the reasons why previous peace talks failed was that they involved too many countries.
The Axios publication, which revealed the details of the conversation between Zelensky and Trump, noted that the US president supported the idea of deploying European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine — this could become one of the security guarantees.
After that, the AP wrote that a group of European countries were privately working on a plan to send troops to Ukraine to help with post-war security.
The FT noted that the US has asked European countries to provide detailed proposals for the weapons, peacekeeping troops and security measures they could provide to Ukraine as part of any security guarantees. The United States wants to calculate Europeʼs willingness to defend Ukraine after a peaceful settlement, to determine the price Europe is willing to pay in exchange for participating in negotiations with Moscow.
A summit of European leaders will take place in Paris on Monday, February 17, convened by French President Emmanuel Macron. The British Prime Minister will also be there.
As The Guardian noted, the British Prime Minister is expected to later convey the messages from the meeting to US President Donald Trump, with whom he is also scheduled to meet in Washington later this week.
It was not officially announced who would participate in the summit, but the media reported that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Germany, Italy, and Poland were also expected to participate.
- The discussion about the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine began in early 2024, after statements by French President Emmanuel Macron. In February, he said that in the future, sending troops from NATO countries to Ukraine should not be ruled out. And in June, a number of media outlets, citing sources, wrote that Macron was looking for allies to send instructors to Ukraine and wanted to create a coalition. The EU did not officially support this idea.
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