PARIS (TIP): France and Britain will continue to forge ahead with plans to deploy troops in Ukraine to secure an eventual peace deal with Russia but only some other nations want to take part, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday after a summit of countries that have been mulling the proposal.
“These reassurance forces are a French-British proposal,” Macron said. “It is desired by Ukraine and noted by several member states that have expressed their willingness to join. It is not unanimous. That is known. Besides, we do not need unanimity to achieve it.”
Macron said French and British military officials will work with Ukrainian counterparts to decide where the contingents could be deployed in Ukraine.
“These exchanges between military officials will define the locations, the number of troops so it is credible,” he said. “There will be a reassurance force with several European nations that will deploy.”
The summit hosting the leaders of nearly 30 countries plus NATO and European Union chiefs comes at a crucial juncture in the more than three-year war, with intensifying diplomatic efforts to broker ceasefires, driven by pressure from US President Donald Trump to end the fighting.
But the conflict is raging on.
Before the leaders met in the luxury of the French presidential palace, Russian drone attacks overnight wounded more than 20 people and heavy shelling Thursday afternoon killed one person and knocked out electricity in parts of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.
US-brokered agreements this week to safeguard shipping in the Black Sea and last week to halt long-range strikes on energy infrastructure were greeted as a first step toward peace. But Ukraine and Russia have disagreed over the details and accused each other of deal violations, foreshadowing a long and contentious process ahead.
France and the United Kingdom are pushing a separate initiative to build a coalition of nations willing in one way or another to support the deployment of a European armed force in Ukraine, with the aim of securing any peace deal by dissuading Russia from attacking the country again.
Some European countries are more comfortable with a potential deployment than others—not least because a big unknown is whether Trump would allow American forces and intelligence agencies to back up any European contingent with air and logistical support and other assistance.
Building a force big enough to act as a credible deterrent—UK officials have talked about possibly 10,000 to 30,000 troops—would also be a considerable effort for nations that shrank their militaries after the Cold War but are now rearming. (AP)