BBC<\/strong><\/a> Radio 4’s Today programme the ‘coalition of the willing’ of Ukrainian allies – including Britain – was poised to help enforce a ceasefire.<\/p>\nBut he refused to speculate on what might happen should British troops come under attack as part of a peacekeeping force in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
‘As the Prime Minister has said, in the circumstances of a ceasefire, we’re ready to put UK boots on the ground in Ukraine,’ the Defence Secretary said.<\/p>\n
‘That’s in part to reassure Ukrainians but it’s also, in part, to secure the safe skies, safe seas and to build the strength of the Ukrainian forces.’<\/p>\n
Mr Healey added: ‘The strongest deterrent against Russia reinvading or regrouping and relaunching their aggression against Ukraine is the strength of Ukraine to stand for itself.’<\/p>\n
Asked if British troops would fight or leave if they were attacked while in Ukraine, the Defence Secretary replied: ‘Those are hypotheticals, so I’m really not going to discuss and can’t discuss at this point.’<\/p>\n
But Mr Healey said there were ‘important principles’ that ‘any British forces have the right to defend themselves if attacked’.<\/p>\n
‘They are ready to go, they’re ready to act from day one in a ceasefire,’ he said of plans for the coalition of the willing to enforce a peace deal.<\/p>\n
‘We are setting up the joint headquarters with the French for that, the military plans are complete.’<\/p>\n
The Defence Secretary dismissed suggestions the UK’s approach to the war is to ‘watch and wait’.<\/p>\n
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘The UK’s role is to stand with Ukraine on the battlefield and in the negotiations, and prepare, as we have been, leading 30 other nations with military planning for a ceasefire and a secure peace through what we call the coalition of the willing.<\/p>\n
‘Our role is to lead the charge, as we have been, on more intensive diplomacy, to lead the charge on military aid to Ukraine so that we don’t jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the current war.<\/p>\n
‘And being ready also to step-up economic pressure on Putin if he’s not willing to take the talks seriously.’<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, and the pair expressed cautious optimism about the prospect of a truce ‘as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious’ about ending the war, Downing Street said.<\/p>\n
Concerns linger over the prospect of Kyiv being excluded from negotiations over its own future, and pressured to cede territory, after Mr Trump suggested any agreement may need to involve ‘swapping of land’.<\/p>\n
Ukraine has already rejected any proposal that would compromise its borders.<\/p>\n
Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This also completely ignores the fact that Russia would see any NATO troops in Ukraine as a direct provocation. In fact the West seems to be itching for a fight. Even though the now battle-hardened Russians would totally overwhelm them <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":248806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=313980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314020,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313980\/revisions\/314020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/248806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=313980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=313980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=313980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}