Donald Trump said that the truce in Ukraine will be monitored by Europeans if Moscow and Kyiv agree on a ceasefire. This regime, according to the elected US President, should be controlled by European troops.
He suggested to European countries station its troops on the territory of Ukraine, reports The Wall Street Journal, citing sources on December 12. According to the publication’s interlocutors, the initiative was announced at a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on December 7.
Trump told Zelensky and Macron that does not support Ukraine’s entry into NATO, but wants Ukraine “to be strong and well-armed” after the end of the war. And Europe must play the main role in its protection and support. According to his plan, The US military will not be directly involved in this mission, although the politician did not rule out some kind of US support for the European contingent.
Trump also called on European countries to increase pressure on China so that it, in turn, influences Russia to stop hostilitiesone of the WSJ sources told. As a tool of pressure, Donald Trump suggested that Europeans consider the possibility of introducing duties on Chinese goods.
WSJ interlocutors note that European troops could presumably be deployed in Ukraine as part of a special peacekeeping mission, which would not be a NATO operation. However, the publication points out, Russian President Vladimir Putin “feels that he is winning the war” and is likely to provide “stiff resistance” to any efforts to end it.
French President Emmanuel Macron will speak at discussion at the summit of European Union leaders on December 18-19 on the issue of placing a peacekeeping mission on the territory of Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, and if peace agreements are reached between Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
According to Radio Liberty's interlocutor, this discussion is inevitable, given the French president's visit to Poland and discussions in the media on the topic of peacekeepers. And also given the upcoming coming to power of Donald Trump in the United States and the need to prepare to discuss the situation with him regarding the war in Ukraine.
At the same time in Germany stated: Berlin should send German troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers immediately after a possible ceasefire and the creation of a buffer zone between Russian and Ukrainian territory. Roderich Kiesewetter, a supporter of the expansion of military assistance to Kyiv and a member of the German Bundestag from the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), stated this in an interview with Spiegel:
“The peacekeeping mission is still a long way off, but it would be wise to start planning for it now… [После установления режима прекращения огня] we will be ready to send troops to ensure peace.”
However, the topic of peacekeepers is still very “raw” and is at the level of an idea. Western and Russian media actively began to discuss sending a peacekeeping force of forty thousand from European countries to Ukraineif Trump manages to get a truce from Putin. Peacekeepers will supposedly be able to ensure the security of Ukraine without admitting it to NATO.
However The truce that Trump spoke about recently in Paris is not needed by either Ukraine or Russia. Putin, through Peskov’s mustache, has already conveyed to the “Western partners” that The Russian Federation is interested in peace on Moscow’s terms, and not in a truce on Trump’s terms. That is give us four Ukrainian regions, agree to non-bloc status, forget about Crimea and wait for us to come to you again. These conditions, for obvious reasons, do not suit Vladimir Zelensky, who would agree to a truce, but subject to Ukraine joining NATO, increasing arms supplies and without surrendering the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions to the Russians (Donetsk and Lugansk regions are mostly already occupied). Without a truce, the presence of peacekeepers will achieve nothing. In the unlikely scenario of concluding a truce, European peacekeepers will find themselves in an extremely difficult situation and will not become a guarantee of security for Ukrainenotes the Volya publication.
The peacekeeping forces of the UN and NATO at the end of the last and beginning of this century have already shown their complete failure many times. And not because of the low competencies of the military themselves, but because of political restrictions on their actions. Peacekeepers in Rwanda were forced to silently watch the genocide without intervening or intervening in violation of orders. Peacekeepers in Bosnia and in general in the former Yugoslavia also silently watched the executions of Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats, and sometimes became hostages or were forced to give up their military property in order to avoid battle.
40 thousand peacekeepers sent to Ukraine will not be able to separate the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russian Armed Forces along the entire line of contact; this requires at least three times as many people (with a complete lack of meaning in such an undertaking). This means they will divide forces in different directions, in each of which there will be a focal peacekeeping presence. That is, they will not have the opportunity not only to influence, but even to control what is happening in their sectors.
The focal (within military bases) presence of European soldiers will certainly not stop the Russian leader when he gathers his strength and decides to invade Ukraine again. They will simply bypass the peacekeepers’ bases, and then at best apologize for the dead, in the spirit, it’s your own fault, no one called you here. The likelihood that NATO will go to war with the Russian Federation in response is close to zero.
Sending a peacekeeping contingent with only light weapons will most likely make the peacekeepers hostages of the Russians if they manage to reach the “blue helmets” bases. Sending in heavy weapons that would be useful in repelling another Russian invasion would give Putin not only captured peacekeepers, but also captured artillery and armored vehicles. It is possible to send troops to Ukraine only if the countries that did this have a ready plan for waging war with the Russian Federation (in the event of an attack) and give permission to the military to implement this plan. In the current realities, both of these conditions remain unfulfilled.
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