It is no longer a fantasy: French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are preparing a plan to deploy military personnel from their respective countries in case of a ceasefire in Ukraine. They are currently the only ones who not only see a risk in the proposal but also an opportunity. Donald Trump, in his meeting last Monday at the White House with the French president, stated that "Putin will allow" this movement as part of the security guarantees proposed by Washington for this peace agreement.
Hours later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied that Moscow was in favor of European troops in Ukraine. It seems to be the first point where the US and the Kremlin are going to clash in this negotiation.
What kind of deployment would it be and what are the objectives? From what has been revealed so far, these two countries are currently the most willing to make efforts, but as the United States has already explained, this is a mission outside of NATO. In other words, in the event of a Russian attack, neither France nor the United Kingdom could invoke Article 5 of the Alliance, which they can activate in the case that these same troops are attacked, for example, in the Baltic region.
What size should this deployment be? There is no consensus on this. Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned 200,000 soldiers, which may seem exaggerated, although when compared to other deployments, it may not be so much. The NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo started with 48,000 soldiers in 1999, securing a territory of 11,000 square kilometers, while Ukraine is nearly 55 times that size, with an active battlefront of about 850 kilometers long and another border to cover of about 1,200 kilometers, such as the border with Belarus, a Moscow ally.
But on a more realistic note, estimates for the necessary force range from 30,000 to 150,000 soldiers, in addition to the Ukrainian forces already stationed in the trenches, as stated by Claudia Major, an analyst from the German SWP think tank. Michael Kofman, a senior member of the Carnegie Endowment, suggests that a deployment of three brigades, units of between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers, could be sufficient to secure the four or five sectors of the front where the fighting was concentrated. In other words, a rapid response force stationed in Ukraine that can reach the attacked area within hours and repel the attacks.
"The usual rotations for training and formation would triple the required number to perhaps 50,000," says Kofman, "without canceling all the requirements of the existing regional defense plan."
This is the model that Macron favors, who hinted at this idea on Monday: "Not going to the front line, not engaging in confrontation, but being in some places, defined by the treaty, as a presence to maintain this peace and our collective credibility with the backing of the United States," said Macron, who also stated that he had spoken with another 30 leaders and European allies, many of whom were willing to be part of the security guarantees for Ukraine, although we know which ones have currently declined: Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany. Others are currently undecided.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, which consulted local Defense sources, it is mentioned that "among the force's objectives would be to ensure the safe reopening of Ukrainian airspace to commercial flights and maintain the security of maritime trade in the Black Sea, crucial for the country's food and grain exports."
Spanish Admiral Juan Rodríguez Garat assures EL MUNDO that in this debate, "two concepts that are like water and oil are being mixed. One is deterrence and the other is peacekeeping by interposition. For the latter, which is what Macron seems to suggest and only involves monitoring and controlling a ceasefire line accepted by the parties - something similar to what UNIFIL does in Lebanon - those 30,000 men that have been publicly mentioned would probably be sufficient. Their mission would be limited to patrolling and reporting violations."
But the fundamental question these days is whether Europe can fill the huge security void that the US is going to leave on the continent and whether its forces will be as strong as to deter Russia: "Deterrence, which is what Ukraine wants, implies combat forces of sufficient size to ensure the tripwire effect, that is, enough carnage to ensure that the EU goes to war if they are attacked. It would have to be at least similar to what NATO has deployed on its borders, and it would only be truly deterrent if there were US brigades."
The deployment of France and the United Kingdom, currently the two countries considering their presence in Ukraine, should not come at the expense of their presence in other NATO hotspots, such as the Baltic countries, possibly the most vulnerable area of the Alliance at the moment. With a hypothetical frozen front in Ukraine resulting from these discussions, if NATO weakens in the Baltic Sea, it would project a very negative scenario for the defense of these countries.
In recent hours, Russia has once again referred to the rare earths coveted by Trump. The Kremlin stated that it saw "broad potential" for cooperation with the US to develop Russia's large reserves of strategic minerals. Putin expressed support for US investments in the strategic minerals located in Russian territory, but also in the regions occupied by Russia in Ukraine.