{"id":678788,"date":"2026-01-07T00:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T00:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/678788\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T00:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T00:30:19","slug":"uk-and-france-agree-to-send-troops-to-ukraine-in-event-of-peace-deal-with-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/678788\/","title":{"rendered":"UK and France agree to send troops to Ukraine in event of peace deal with Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The United Kingdom and France have agreed to deploy forces in Ukraine<\/a> if it strikes a peace deal with Russia, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, in a renewed push by Western leaders to guarantee Kyiv\u2019s post-war security and deter Moscow from further aggression.\n <\/p>\n

\n After officials from 35 countries gathered in Paris for a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron signed a \u201cdeclaration of intent\u201d to put British and French boots on the ground in Ukraine in the event of a peace deal \u2013 a move Russia has long staunchly opposed.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFollowing a ceasefire, the UK and France will establish military hubs across Ukraine and build protected facilities for weapons and military equipment to support Ukraine\u2019s defensive needs,\u201d Starmer said at a joint news conference alongside European leaders, as well as US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law.\n <\/p>\n

\n Tuesday\u2019s meeting \u2013 the largest since the coalition was founded last spring \u2013 had risked being overshadowed by the US\u2019 toppling of Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro<\/a>, as well as by Trump\u2019s coveting of Greenland<\/a>, the vast autonomous Arctic territory ruled by Denmark. Just days after the Venezuela raid, Trump\u2019s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller underlined the administration\u2019s claims on the island, telling CNN<\/a> that Greenland should \u201cobviously\u201d be a part of the US and that \u201cnobody is going to fight the United States\u201d over its future.\n <\/p>\n

\n Before the meeting, analysts had questioned whether the US could be trusted to guarantee Ukraine\u2019s security while it is threatening to occupy the territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO member.\n <\/p>\n

\n But, despite Washington\u2019s sharp pivot toward the Western hemisphere, Witkoff stressed that the Trump administration remains determined \u201cto do everything possible\u201d to bring peace to Ukraine, and said \u201ca lot of progress\u201d had been made in Paris.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe think we\u2019re largely finished with security protocols, which are important, so that the people of Ukraine know that when this ends, it ends forever,\u201d the envoy said, referring to Russia\u2019s nearly four-year war.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an interview with CNN on the sidelines of the meeting, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Tuesday\u2019s meeting had been \u201cvery successful.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m absolutely convinced that, if this gets into place, that Putin will never, ever try again to attack Ukraine,\u201d Rutte said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Macron<\/p>\n

\n There was no immediate reaction from Moscow, but the Kremlin has repeatedly stressed that it will not agree to foreign troops operating in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force. President Vladimir Putin said in September that any Western troops in Ukraine would be considered \u201clegitimate targets.\u201d<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n If a peace deal is struck, security guarantees will include a \u201ccontinuous, reliable ceasefire monitoring system\u201d led by the US and supported by other nations, the members of the Coalition of the Willing said in a joint statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n The members also agreed to provide Ukraine with \u201ccritical long-term military assistance and armaments\u201d to Ukraine, as well as deploying a multinational force to guarantee Ukraine\u2019s security \u201cin the air, at sea and on land.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Although Britain and France had previously stated their willingness to deploy troops to Ukraine following a ceasefire, Starmer said that this agreement sets out the legal framework for allowing their forces to operate there.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThese security guarantees are the key to ensuring that a peace agreement can never mean a Ukrainian surrender or a new threat to Ukraine,\u201d Macron said. He noted Russia\u2019s history of breaking peace agreements with its neighbors, and said Ukraine\u2019s allies wanted to prevent such violations happening again.\n <\/p>\n

\"Representatives<\/p>\n

\n The members also agreed to supply Ukraine with \u201call the necessary resources\u201d to supply an armed force of 800,000 troops, Macron said. An earlier draft of a peace plan<\/a>, which emerged in November and was criticized as being heavily favorable to Moscow, sought to cap Ukraine\u2019s armed forces at 600,000 personnel. Ukraine rejected that 28-point plan and has since worked on a revised draft during several meetings with US officials.\n <\/p>\n

\n Although Tuesday\u2019s agreement represents the clearest picture yet of how Ukraine\u2019s allies intend to guarantee its security in the event of a peace deal, that deal itself remains elusive.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe can only get to a peace deal if Putin is ready to make compromises,\u201d said Starmer. \u201cFor all Russia\u2019s words, Putin is not showing that he\u2019s ready for peace.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite intense diplomacy between the US and Ukraine in December, hopes for a swift peace deal were derailed after Putin told Trump that Ukraine had launched a massive drone attack on one of his residences. Trump said he was \u201cvery angry\u201d after hearing the claim, which the CIA later assessed<\/a> not to be true.\n <\/p>\n

\n Starmer said that Putin had \u201ctried to distract from peace efforts with unfounded claims of attacks on his residence \u2026 This only hardens our resolve.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom and France have agreed to deploy forces in Ukraine if it strikes a peace deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-678788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115850997126205184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}