UK on collision course with Russia over peacekeeping troops in Ukraine

The UK is on a collision course with Russia as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to double down on his plans for a peacekeeping force in Ukraine which would be partly led by British troops.

The Prime Minister will urge US President Donald Trump to commit US military power as a “backstop” to any future peace deal ending the war in Ukraine when he visits the White House next month.

Western leaders are understood to believe that an effective peacekeeping force would require sending a message to Russia that if it breaks the agreement, its troops will be met with force and the US military will stand behind the response – even without sending its own troops in to Ukraine.

A UK Government source said: “The guarantee is so that the Russians do have that deterrent effect. This is the deal that we think is there and this is what we want to talk about in Washington next week.

“We need to know that there is a meaningful US backstop.”

On Tuesday evening, Trump said he would not oppose European peacekeeping troops being stationed in Ukraine as part of a peace deal with Russia.

“If they want to do that, that’d be fine,” he told reporters at Mar-A-Lago.

“I know France has mentioned it. Others have mentioned it, the UK has mentioned it,” he added, describing it a “beautiful gesture”. 

As talks between his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, got underway in Saudi Arabia, Trump said he felt “more confident” about the prospect of a peace deal and that he would probably meet with Vladimir Putin before the end of the month.

European governments are currently split on whether to send troops to protect Kyiv against the threat of a fresh invasion by Russia.

The UK and France are most enthusiastic about the idea, with German participation likely to hinge on the result of the country’s election which is taking place at the weekend.

But Russia’s foreign minister warned following talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia that the Kremlin could not accept Western troops policing a deal in Ukraine.

Sergei Lavrov said: “We explained today that the appearance of armed forces from the same Nato countries, but under a false flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags, does not change anything in this regard. Of course this is unacceptable to us.”

His comments put Russia starkly at odds with the UK on how a peace agreement would be enforced – at the same time as Starmer faces the challenge of persuading the US President not to abandon the protection of Ukraine altogether.

John Healey, the Defence Secretary, insisted that American force would be needed to guarantee that Russia would not attack again.

He said: “We need a security guarantee for Ukraine, in Ukraine, that is capable of delivering what President Trump has pledged and says he wants, which is a durable peace that requires an end to the Russian attack and no repeat of that in the future.

“The European countries have to play a leading part in that guarantee, but require a backstop from the US – because in the end, it is only the US that can provide the deterrence to Putin that will prevent him attacking again.”

HR McMaster, a former US Army general who was national security adviser during Trump’s first term in office, predicted this week that American troops would end up protecting Ukraine following any peace deal.

He said: “I think there will be de facto US security guarantees if not de jure US security guarantees. If there are Nato troops inside Ukraine and there is a ceasefire, we should go back into the Black Sea for example with our ships.

“So I can see the US being like, outside-in security, and if Nato forces came under duress, an attack on one is an attack on all and I think the United States could probably destroy every single Russian position outside of Russia in the period of maybe half a day, and I think Russia knows that.”

The precise make-up of a multinational peacekeeping force is still subject to negotiation, after the summit in Paris organised by Emmanuel Macron on Monday ended without agreement on a unified European response.

One Nato official said: “We really should have been talking about this last year or earlier, but better late than never. It will have to be a coalition of the willing and it should be led by Britain or France.”

France plans to a host a second meeting on Wednesday, but has this time invited European countries not present earlier this week and Nato ally Canada, diplomatic sources told Reuters.

Norway, Canada, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Finland, Romania, Sweden and Belgium are expected to attend and may involve some officials appearing via video-link.

Some countries were reportedly unhappy that the first meeting was only for selected leaders and not a full EU summit.

Germany’s leader Olaf Scholz criticised leaders who were already talking publicly about sending their troops to Ukraine, but he is widely expected to lose office at the upcoming elections.

Other leading military powers in Europe such as Italy and Poland have also expressed reservations about allowing troops to risk confronting Russia directly.

However, Whitehall insiders are optimistic that European allies will become bolder in their approach once the stance of the Trump administration becomes clear as negotiations with the Kremlin progress.

There are also growing signs that Britain and the EU will agree a deal to work more closely together on “industrial co-ordination”, particularly the manufacture of weaponry and munitions, which would allow them to speed up the process of rebuilding the stocks depleted during the Ukraine war.

The Defence Secretary promised to “rearm Britain” and set out plans to save £10bn from the defence budget by modernising its equipment programme. He added: “We know as European nations, we need to step up on European security, on defence spending, and on Ukraine.”

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who recently returned from Ukraine, said UK defence spending should have been boosted over a decade ago.

He told The i Paper: “We have failed Ukraine. We’ve been the best supporting them, ahead of all the rest, including America, but we haven’t had the wherewithal to give them everything they need, because we ourselves have not spent the money on building up our military.”

Sir Iain added: “The reason that this war has gone on for three years is because, including America, nobody could make their mind up whether they wanted Ukraine to actually win. If they’re going to win this war, and I still think they can – I was out there quite recently, I could see their capability – they need to outgun the Russians. They don’t have the ammunition, they don’t have the weapons.”

Analysis: What the rest of Europe is saying

Germany
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the talk was “irritating” and “an incomprehensible debate at the wrong time and about the wrong topic”. Scholz, who has long been cautious about sending soldiers and arms to Ukraine, faces elections on Sunday. His Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said last month that Germany may consider contributing forces to such a mission. Friedrich Merz, the conservative leader who is likely to become chancellor after the elections, has been hawkish about Ukraine but has not explicitly endorsed deploying German peacekeepers.

Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she told fellow leaders that the idea of sending European troops to Ukraine was “the most complex and least likely to be effective” of various options.

Denmark
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she was “open to discussing many different things”, such as troop deployments. “But I would also like to emphasise that there are really, really many things that need to be clarified before we reach this situation.”

Spain
Spain was most reticent. “Nobody is currently considering sending troops to Ukraine,” José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said.

Poland
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Warsaw was not prepared to send troops, but mainly because he is defending his own border (with Belarus, effectively a Putin client state).

Estonia
So far, only the Baltic states have signalled support for the idea, as long as it is a broader mission with other allies. Estonia’s Defence Minister Hanno Pevklur said last month that European allies are “in a very early stage” of developing the plan to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.

Netherlands
The Dutch have already started arguing about it. Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof, who was in Paris, said it was “unwise” not to discuss participation in a possible military force in Ukraine. Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right PVV, the largest government coalition party, said he was opposed.

Norway
Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre also said that “the time had not come” to discuss sending Norwegian soldiers to Ukraine.

Sweden
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer said she did “not rule out” the possibility of sending of peacekeeping soldiers to Ukraine.

By Leo Cendrowicz