Britain’s plan for Ukraine’s postwar security could still involve troops on the ground ...Middle East

Britain and its allies are ploughing ahead with plans for Ukraine’s postwar security including options for stationing troops in the country, insiders said as Europe put forward a counter-proposal to a widely reviled US-Russia peace plan.

Ukraine’s European allies this week tacitly rejected Donald Trump’s peace proposal, a 28-point plan created with Russia which would have seen Ukraine cede territory, limit the size of its military to 600,000, and commit not to join Nato.

The deal would also prevent Nato troops from being stationed in Ukraine after the war, something for which countries including the UK had been preparing under a co-called Coalition of the Willing.

However, European countries met Ukrainian and US representatives in Geneva on Sunday, when they put forward an alternative proposal, including a Nato Article 5-style security guarantee from the US, negotiations on territorial swaps from the current front line, and a reiteration that the decision on whether Ukraine could join the alliance would belong to Nato.

Trump had suggested that his proposal, which was highly favourable to Russia, prompting speculation as to how much involvement the US had had in it, was not his final offer.

But as the meeting commenced, the US President took to his Truth Social site to criticise Ukraine and question the authority of President Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming: “Ukraine’s ‘leadership’ has expressed zero gratitude for our efforts”. 

Under the European counter-proposal, Nato would agree not to permanently station troops under its command in Ukraine in peacetime, according to a report by Reuters. However, whether this leaves open the possibility of troops from countries that are members of Nato but not acting under Nato command has yet to be determined.

According to another report from The Telegraph, under the European plan there should be no restriction on the presence of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil.

After the talks on Sunday, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had made good progress in talks to end the war in Ukraine.

“So I think the takeaway from it is, I think this is a very, very meaningful, I would say, probably best meeting and day we’ve had so far in this entire process, going back to when we first came to office in January,” Rubio said.

The Prime Minister and US President spoke on Sunday, No 10 confirmed.

A Downing Street spokesperson said the two “discussed various aspects of the high-level discussions taking place in Geneva today on the US peace plan for Ukraine.

“They agreed that we all must work together at this critical moment to bring about a just and lasting peace. They agreed to keep in touch,” the spokesperson added.

UK still willing to put boots on the ground

The UK is among the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing, a group of more than 30 countries committed to protecting Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK is ready to put “boots on the ground, and planes in the air”.

One defence insider said that Coalition planning was ongoing despite Trump’s deal, but would be altered according to the terms of the deal eventually reached.

The UK’s own willingness to send troops has not been changed by Trump’s plan, they added.

It is understood that not all members of the coalition would be willing to deploy troops, with some likely to provide alternative support such as air cover.

Dr Marina Miron, of the War Studies department at King’s College London, said one option for the final peace agreement was to have unarmed troops there only for monitoring, as in Cyprus.

However, any Western presence could be dangerous and costly – and lead Russia to demand its own international support on the ground.

“Maybe Russia agrees to it, if it says, we will have troops on our side from North Korea, China, India, Colombia. There could be certain preconditions that will have to be met for that to happen,” Miron said.

Funding constraints may hinder Europe’s support for Ukraine

Miron questioned the ability of European powers, including the UK, to support a peacekeeping or deterrence force long term amid domestic funding crises.

Day-to-day spending on defence was cut by nearly £10bn between 2010 and 2024, when the Armed Forces fell below the target size for full-time trained strength for the first time since it was set.

Miron said: “You have to think about density of the troops. Where will they be stationed? Will they be armed? Who is going to pay for their stationing? And that is an important point, because it’s a long-term commitment. It’s an expensive venture to send troops for monitoring.”

“Can the UK even think of sending the troops there? Does it have some money to sustain them? How long should they stay there? Because the US is not going to pay for them; the US is probably just going to sell them weapons.”

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute and former top Ministry of Defence (MoD) official, previously told The i Paper that the UK was “so stretched that it would be really hard to do something new in Ukraine without pulling it away from, for example, a Nato commitment”.

The Government has committed to spending 5 per cent of GDP on national security by 2035; 3.5 per cent on “core defence” costs and a further 1.5 per cent on resilience and infrastructure, in line with a Nato agreement, and says it is “unapologetic and systematic in pursuit of our national interests”.

Defence Minister Lord Coaker has said that the UK is “ready to go” in supporting Ukraine, saying “command structures have long been agreed” and that “reconnaissance missions to Ukraine have been completed.”

The UK has already increased its presence along Nato’s border with Russia, in response to increasing aggression from the Kremlin.

In September, the UK deployed fighter jets to eastern Europe as part of Operation Eastern Sentry, a Nato initiative to bolster defence of Nato airspace after a series of incursions by Russia.

It has also established a deep security relationship with Estonia, which shares an 183-mile border with Russia, and the country is now home to the largest contingent of British troops deployed anywhere in the world.

Briton stationed in Estonia told The i Paper during a visit earlier this year that the deployment made Putin’s threat “feel real and alive” but they were “nothing but confident in our own abilities if that moment came.”

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