Britain and France plan to deploy 7,500 troops each to Ukraine to help provide post-war security guarantees after a possible peace deal with Russia, two British sources close to the matter told The Times.
British soldiers
According to them, the military leadership in London would have initially proposed sending a larger contingent of approximately 10,000 British soldiers. But the plan was rejected by the Ministry of Defense amid constraints on the size of the British army, which currently numbers around 71,000 active-duty trained soldiers.
So far, only Britain and France have expressed their willingness to send troops to Ukrainian territory after the cessation of hostilities, a level of commitment “considerably lower than originally anticipated,” the British publication notes. Germany, another key ally of Kiev, would prefer to deploy its forces near Ukraine's borders, possibly in Poland or Romania, avoiding direct presence on Ukrainian territory.
According to the plans discussed so far, the British and French military would be deployed in western Ukraine, away from the contact line with Russian forces. Even so, several officials cited by The Times warn that a contingent of 15,000 troops may be “too optimistic” in relation to political and military realities.
Sources in the British Ministry of Defense point out that the final number of troops has not yet been determined and will depend on a number of factors, including the concrete terms of the ceasefire and the architecture of internationally agreed security guarantees.
On January 6, the leaders of Ukraine, France and Great Britain — Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer — signed a declaration in Paris on the deployment of “multinational forces” in Ukraine after the end of the war. However, the document does not mention the size of the foreign contingent. The British Prime Minister also announced that London and Paris had agreed on the opening of military bases in Ukraine, without giving further details.
For his part, the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, stated that the concrete commitments of the states of the so-called “coalition of the willing”, which brings together 35 countries, are still in the preliminary phase and are to be defined by the end of January, including depending on the position of the United States on security guarantees for Ukraine.
