Russia may be in no hurry to negotiate an end to its war on Ukraine, but western states, including the Republic, are already engaged in intensifying and sometimes tetchy debate over how to safeguard an eventual – and for now entirely hypothetical – peace.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday that the State was ready to support lasting peace in his country, “including through the provision of non-lethal military assistance and our openness to taking part in any appropriately mandated peacekeeping mission in line with the UN Charter”.
About 30 countries, most of them in Europe, are part of a “coalition of the willing” that is ready to bolster Ukraine’s long-term security. Ministers from these states will hold talks on the subject on Wednesday and their leaders will take part in person, or online, in a summit scheduled for Thursday in Paris.
The group is led loosely by Britain and France, but does not include the United States. US president Donald Trump has ruled out sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, while saying the United States is ready to play a “co-ordinating” role and could provide air support.
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US satellite, signals and other intelligence would be vital to any peacekeeping mission. Moreover, such an arrangement would not only encourage European countries to commit troops to such a force but also reassure Ukraine that the US remained engaged in monitoring and safeguarding its security.
Even in countries that strongly support Kyiv, the question of sending troops to Ukraine is extremely sensitive. Poland, for example, has ruled it out, saying that it must focus its security efforts on defending its own borders with Russia’s highly militarised Kaliningrad enclave and with Belarus, one of Moscow’s closest allies.
Britain, France, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Estonia and Lithuania have suggested most clearly that they are open to sending peacekeepers, while several countries, including Germany, have signalled ambiguous messages. Others have ruled out sending troops but pledged to provide logistical, air or other support.
The issue is only likely to become even more fraught as plans firm up and if peace becomes a real possibility, but it is already causing tempers to fray.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius chided European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week after she said “pretty precise plans” had already been drawn up for a multinational troop deployment to Ukraine.
“Apart from the fact that the European Union has no jurisdiction or competence whatsoever when it comes to the deployment of troops ... I would be very cautious about confirming or commenting on such considerations in any way,” he said.
Several possible roles have been discussed for a peacekeeping or “reassurance” force: at its “lightest”, foreign troops would train Ukrainian forces far from the front line and guard key infrastructure such as ports and power stations; at its most robust, the mission would patrol and guard near the front line and enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine for Russian aircraft, missiles and drones.
Analysts say European states want to firm up plans quickly because they fear Trump will change his mind and rule out any future US role in protecting Ukraine – or may even cut his own deal on Ukraine with Russian president Vladimir Putin while sidelining Kyiv and Europe.
At the same time, media reports indicate the US president is considering allowing private military contractors from the United States to work in postwar Ukraine and has also suggested the participation of Chinese peacekeepers – a claim the White House denies.
Ultimately, any peacekeeping mission would hinge on the West’s readiness to stand up to Russia, which says it would never agree to any western troop deployment to Ukraine and would regard it as a hostile foreign “intervention”.
