You will shortly be re-directed to the publisher's website
The French President is reportedly looking to deploy foreign troops to the country through the UN
French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly considering using the United Nations to get European boots on the ground in Ukraine, the Telegraph reported on Thursday. The plan, primarily led by Paris and London, has repeatedly been opposed by Moscow.
France and the UK have been promoting a “coalition of the willing” among NATO and EU states to send a purported peacekeeping force to Ukraine in the event of a possible peace deal between Moscow and Kiev.
According to the Telegraph, during a European Council summit on Thursday attended by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Macron raised the idea of a UN-led peacekeeping mission.
Russia has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of a Western peacekeeping force being deployed to Ukraine, noting that the only way such a mission could potentially be justified would be through a UN mandate. However, given that such a mission would have to be approved by the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, its prospects “appear to be slim,” the Telegraph noted.
On Thursday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also hosted some 30 senior military leaders from the “coalition of the willing” to discuss the troop deployment plans, after which he announced that the group was moving into an “operational phase.” He did not clarify how many countries have actually agreed to participate or how they intend to implement the plan.
At least two EU and NATO members – Italy and Hungary – have already rejected the Franco-British proposal. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has stressed that the issue of sending her country’s troops to Ukraine has “never been on the agenda” and described the plan as a “very complex, risky and ineffective operation.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has previously argued that the deployment of NATO military personnel, even under the guise of peacekeepers, would amount to the “direct, official, undisguised involvement of NATO countries in the war against Russia.” He has also accused France and the UK of trying to fuel tensions in Ukraine in order to disrupt attempts at resolving the conflict.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now the deputy chair of the national Security Council, warned last week that the deployment of NATO forces to Ukraine would trigger an all-out war between the military bloc and Moscow and accused Macron and Starmer of “playing dumb.”
