British Special Forces have been put on standby to head to Ukraine as part of the UK’s peacekeeping mission as an agreement over a ceasefire edge closer, The i Paper can reveal.
Special Force units were told to prepare for mobilisation to Ukraine by military planners tasked with readying forces by the Cabinet Office, according to two military sources with knowledge of the directive.
The command centre for UK military planning , the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), was sent directives last week to begin the process for the deployment of personnel and resources.
The orders, which also applied to Special Force reservists, put personnel on standby in order to ensure military equipment is in working order before receiving a notice to mobilise to Ukraine.
A decision to put key troops on standby comes as Britain prepares to host military chiefs from a group of countries ready to support a ceasefire agreement with Russia. On Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer said plans to put a peacekeeping force in Ukraine have now entered an “operational phase”.
Military experts have said that while UK Special Forces are not a traditional peacekeeping unit their ability to be deployed rapidly along with their expertise in intelligence and reconnaissance make them an ideal tool to spearhead the “coalition of the willing”.
Marco Wyss, professor of international history and security at Lancaster University, said that unpredictability of how the ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine will materialise plays into the hands of the “agile” UK Special Forces, who could be “rapidly deployed” to spearhead a peacekeeping force.
He said: “Its very difficult at this stage without knowing what sort of peace needs to be kept. A lot of this will be contingency planning, what can be done rapidly, and the quickest tool at the disposal of 10 Downing Street is the Special Forces.
“They are good at reconnaissance, they can function in a very agile way, to extricate, to protect important sites.”
Professor Wyss added that this will not be a traditional peace deal, but a temporary ceasefire and any peacekeeping force could be used to enforce terms between Ukraine and Russia. The potential for so-called greyzone attacks – a term for operations launched when two countries are neither at peace or direct war – or the dangers of escalation could require the skills Special Forces are equipped with.
He said. “If you suddenly had some grey zone operations from the Russians, you could nip them in the bud.”
Dr Simon Anglim, a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, said UK special forces are “one of our remaining world-class military capabilities” who will be used in a peacekeeping force for “intelligence gathering, VIP protection, some training and possibly countering Russian ‘hybrid’ activity”.
Optimism of a ceasefire
The directive to UK Special Forces came shortly after UK Defence Secretary John Healey’s trip to Washington last week, the sources said.
Speaking from Downing Street after a virtual summit with European leaders last week, the prime minister said a “coalition of the willing” is pressing ahead with the pledge to back a ceasefire deal with 10,000 troops on the ground.
The proposed force is significantly smaller than the 30,000 troops Starmer reportedly pitched to US President Donald Trump during their White House meeting last month. But a smaller, more specialised force including use of the UK special forces would use intelligence, surveillance, and long-range monitoring to ensure the ceasefire.
An MOD spokesperson said: “It is the longstanding policy of successive government’s not to comment on Special Forces activity”.
A specialist and secretive force
The work of the UK’s Special Forces is highly secretive. Units are regularly deployed to areas where the UK is not officially involved in conflict to conduct intelligence operations, kidnap rescue, and reconnaissance missions.
The Special Forces operate without the need for approval from the House of Commons, and the Ministry of Defence routinely says it does not comment on the activity of the unit. However, media reports have often placed the elite military force in countries across the globe.
A 2023 analysis of media reports surrounding the unit’s work by a research group, Action on Armed Violence, compiled a list of Special Forces activities to show they had been involved in covert operations in 19 countries since 2011.
The list of deployments includes Nigeria, the Philippines and Russia, as well as in Syria, and Mali. After a year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leaked Pentagon papers revealed that fifty members of UK Special Forces were listed as being present in Ukraine during the conflict.
The specialist units have reportedly participated in hostage rescues and exfiltration, taking part in the rescue of two dozen British diplomats and their families after the outbreak of fighting in Sudan, as well as helping plan an operation to rescue a couple held in the Philippines in 2019.
While peacekeeping missions are not a usual deployment for UK Special Forces, their expertise is believed to be a key factor in ensuring peace, reducing harm, and building confidence of wider troops deployed to Ukraine.
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