The Ukrainian and French presidents continue to be the central nexus of organisation for a mooted deployment of Western troops to support Kyiv. Zelensky confirmed he had discussed the matter again with Macron on Monday evening. Announcing the call, Zelensky said the pair had discussed the battlefield situation and agreed to continue working closely on “achieving peace and developing effective security guarantees.”
Zelensky said one of those guarantees discussed was “the French initiative to deploy military contingents in Ukraine. We addressed practical steps for its implementation, potential expansion, and the involvement of other nations in this effort.”
The suggestion that Western nations deploy troops to Ukraine to prevent further Russian aggression has been openly discussed for some time now, particularly by President Emmanuel Macron, who has transformed himself from a dove eager to negotiate with Putin in the early stages of the latest invasion to a hawk ahead of other NATO leaders on weapon donations. His lobbying to develop a European force of 100,000 peacekeepers hit the headlines in December, which Zelensky called a reliable guarantee for peace that would “contribute to stabilizing the path to peace”.
Last week, the topic was raised again at the Ukraine meeting at the Ramstein NATO airbase in Germany. Zelensky said the presence of Western troops in Ukraine could help “force Russia into peace.” Deploying “partners’ contingents” is “one of the best instruments” for peace, he said.
As well as calling for peacekeeper contingents in Ukraine and for Western states to send more modern weapons to Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia to degrade its warfighting capacity, France’s Macron had also looked forward to end-of-war negotiations but has called on incoming President Donald Trump to strengthen Ukraine’s hand before starting talks. He said earlier this month: “The new American president knows himself that the United States has no chance of winning anything if Ukraine loses… A capitulation by Ukraine cannot be good for Europeans and Americans”.
On Monday, President Trump recalled the enormous damage that has been done to Ukraine and its people and said it would have been wiser to “gotten them into a room, Zelensky and Putin, we would have worked out a deal” and said that now “we’re going to do everything we can to get it stopped, for both countries”.
Breitbart News
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