The United Kingdom may send Typhoon fighter jets to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission after a ceasefire agreement is reached.
This is reported by The Times, citing sources.
The British government is currently discussing options for providing security guarantees for Ukraine that avoid sending a large contingent of ground troops. According to an unnamed government official, London could create an “air policing” mission, similar to NATO’s program that has protected the airspace of the Baltic states since 2004.
A journalistic source in the British Air Force is convinced that this option looks more realistic than establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The thing is that to maintain such a zone, fighter jets would have to be on duty in the air 24 hours a day.
The “air police” operation would require a “significant” number of Typhoon jets and air defence systems to protect them. They could be based in Poland and be on alert. Discussions are at an early stage, but a source told The Times: “We are prepared to do whatever we are told.”
Theoretically, dozens of Typhoons could be ready for any Russian attack. And smaller peacekeeping forces from the UK and other European countries would offer protection on the ground.
The British publication The Guardian, citing sources in the defense sector, wrote that European security guarantees for Ukraine may provide for a significantly smaller number of troops than 100-150 thousand — this is the figure mentioned by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
As journalists noted, a European-led force would not necessarily be stationed in large numbers on the contact line. So they could number “a few tens of thousands” or even less. European forces could use intelligence and long-range surveillance to track any Russian attempts to breach the contact line.
At the same time, other British military sources said that the UK, in the most likely scenario, could send one or two of its brigades or lead a multinational division. As of October 2024, the British army totaled just over 71 000 troops. Meanwhile, London has already promised to provide a brigade to defend Estonia if the US decides to withdraw some of its troops from Europe.
The Guardian notes that there is another alternative: European troops would not be stationed in Ukraine at all, but would instead focus on long-term monitoring.
Europeʼs participation in the settlement of the war in Ukraine
After US President Donald Trump reported 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.
Against this backdrop, French President Emmanuel Macron is convening a meeting of leaders of "major European countries" in Paris to discuss European security and the war in Ukraine.
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