Dan Sabbagh – The Guardian Feb 19, 2025
Britain and France are leading efforts to create a European “reassurance force” intended to prevent future Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, ports and critical infrastructure in the event of a US-brokered peace deal.
The proposal, western officials said, would involve less than 30,000 troops and would be likely to be concentrated on air and maritime defence. Ground forces would be minimal and not deployed near the frontline in the east of Ukraine.
Among the aims of the force would be to ensure the safe reopening of Ukraine’s airspace to commercial flights and to maintain the security of seaborne trade over the Black Sea, critical to the country’s food and grain exports.
Ukraine’s electricity and other utilities have been repeatedly bombed by Russia during the near-three-year war, and maintaining their integrity is also deemed critical to the recovery of the country if the conflict is brought to a close.
It is unclear whether a force that is relatively small in number would be supported by Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for the creation of a deterrence force 100,000-150,000 strong, which involves the US.
However, last week, Pete Hegseth, the new US secretary of defence, said “there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine”.
The size of European militaries remains modest, meaning that any postwar security effort would have to be in the low tens of thousands and focused on areas of technological superiority.
A precondition of the European plan, however, would also be a US commitment to a “backstop” which, though not spelled out in detail is likely, one official said, to be “biased towards air power and the extraordinary strength we have in air power”. Such operations could be based in Poland and Romania, they added.
Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, is due to fly out to Washington next week to lobby the US president, Donald Trump, directly and persuade him to agree to providing a backstop that would ensure the European “reassurance force” would not be challenged by Russia in the future. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is also due to visit Washington next week.
Russia, meanwhile, has said publicly it objects to any Nato country deploying in Ukraine in the event of an end to the war. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Tuesday that Nato forces under any other flag would be “unacceptable to us”.
Western officials emphasised on Wednesday that there was little or no appetite to place European forces in the east of Ukraine, where they could be attacked in Russian provocations, reflecting the policy of the previous three years to ensure there was no escalation of the war into fighting between Nato and Moscow.
“It would be odd,” one said, “to start putting in place something that might mean that you end up in direct conflict between western forces and Russia.”
The effort is described as being at the “concept stage” – the work of militaries trying to draw up proposals that could be approved by European politicians, and ultimately form part of a peace agreement, if Russia and Ukraine are able to accept one.
Ukraine still has stocks of US weapons being transferred to it after decisions taken in the last days of the Biden administration, and for now is considered by the west to be capable of fighting off the Russian invasion for some time to come.
The country’s defence ministry estimates that 20% of its arms come from the US, compared to 55% from its own manufacturing and 25% from Europe. But the US arms tend to be of a higher quality, the experts added.
“Kit is still going in,” an official emphasised. They said there were enough arms available to “keep Ukraine in the fight well beyond some of the conversations about what might emerge in terms of ceasefire negotiations”.
There’s zero chance that any EU/NATO forces will enter UKraine as peace keepers.
Super powers, and Russia is a super power, do not have enemy peace keepers on their borders.
Let’s says there’s some sort of deal. It’s going to be the Russian border, and on the other side, it’s going to be demiliterised, maybe a lightly armed UKrainian national guard.
Nazi Amerika has clearly stated no US troops in UKraine for any purpose, so if Russia says no, and the European NATO Nazis put troops in UKraine, the Russians will kill them, and go back months, many months, when I was saying ‘if Russia nuked the UK, NO ONE would lift a military finger to aid Nazi UK, least of all, the Amerikans, and what has come to pass in recent days, is exactly what I was saying a long time ago.
UK gets nuked, the French military will tell Macron to take a running jump.
What we’re seeing at the moment, is staggering fakery, and for two reasons. Nazi NATO has been defeated. Please take note; every pundit out there is spinning this lie that it’s ‘UKraine fighting Russia’. This is a monstrous lie, the formulation of fake history. The second point, they need some sort of off ramp, and Trump’s entry into the White House presents this opportunity for a pause, because that’s all it is, and European NATO doesn’t even want a pause.
As I’ve said, the RAF have been training for a daring low level strike on Moscow and St Petersburg. I saw this training in Snowdonia, and I’ve seen it first hand in Scotland.
The UK Nazis believe they’ve found a way through the Russian radar network, or they believe they can overcome key areas. This is an option for the UK Nazis, and I believe such an attack would be launched from Finland.
Current US policy has rendered the UK submarine fleet redundant, and Trident doesn’t work anyway.
The Russians say no, and the Amerikans will agree, because they need this fakery pause.
Why Nazi Starmer is going to the US with his begging cap, I don’t know. He’s not going to get anything. Yes, US deep state would like some NATO forces in UKraine, but not if the Russians say no, and if they do, they’ll kill them.
Like I said yesterday, things are much more dangerous than many realise, especially with those nutjobs in Vauxhall Cross.
I seems to me that the idea is to see as many Ukranians killed as possible. Perhaps, to make way for the “Greater Israel.” We must see that it doesn’t happen. It has been all Ukranian blood that has been spilt not Jewish.This land belongs forever to the slavic Ukranian people.
What an atrocious publication this newspaper is. Never mention of peace. I’ll wager this journalist,advocating more death for others, would turn into a jibbering wreck if he was sent to the front lines in Ukraine. For what it’s worth, I reckon Chinese troops will be the eventual peace force. They have untold numbers of personnel, and who knows, they could end up policing the whole of Europe, including UK, if there is any backlash from the new AI, digital id and currency being rolled out very soon.
Zelly + Starmer: The Midget & The Moron… what a pair of tossers…
but at least we were spared the cringe of seeing Starmer all kitted-out in his camo Military gear! 🙄
Lmao once again, keep the comedy coming.
@Larry re “What an atrocious publication this newspaper is.”
It’s Bwitish. What do expect… journalism? 😂
you NAhTOd agressors (since 2014) have nothing to
fear from russian bear + be absolutely secure if you do
NOTHING aslong you pay compensation to russia for
all the damage you have caused with your covered
insidious special operations (since 2014) . its understandable
that you are littlebit unrest by your mass hysterian medias +
politicians . CALM ! TRY MEDITATION !
oh no not carl jones and his natzis again
i wish he would go for treatment some where
far far away
i thought carl jones had been banned ?
he is stuff full of nonsense where is Nico X when we need him