Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2025. © Richard Kemp
Sir Keir Starmer rightly says that Vladimir Putin cannot be trusted, and therefore the US needs to provide a security guarantee for any peace deal. What could that security guarantee be? America and Europe have been sending weapons to Ukraine for 10 years, even more so since 2022, and that hasn’t deterred or stopped Russia. It has slowed up Putin’s army and inflicted heavy casualties, but three years on from the full-scale invasion, Russia is still advancing inside Ukraine. Had significantly more munitions been supplied much earlier in the war then the picture today might be different. But that won’t happen now, not even with Starmer’s promised 5,000 air defence missiles. Nor did economic sanctions achieve very much given Western fears of excessive self-harm plus continued unrestrained Russian trade with many countries including China, India and Turkey.
President Zelensky’s number one security guarantee would be membership of Nato but that is off the table. Nor is there any prospect of any country threatening military action in response to Russia breaching a peace deal or launching any further aggression.
Starmer’s and French President Macron’s idea of a security guarantee is sending a European coalition of the willing into Ukraine to ‘defend’ a ceasefire. That could only happen with the consent of Russia. But Foreign Minister Lavrov has repeatedly said that will not be allowed and any Nato forces on the ground in Ukraine will be regarded as combatants and attacked. It doesn’t matter what flag they might fly, they would be seen in the same light. Indeed allowing peacekeepers in would make no sense from the Russian perspective given that Putin’s most oft-repeated excuse for invading Ukraine is the alleged encroachment of Nato towards Russian soil.
Furthermore Starmer and Macron have both made clear that a peacekeeping force could not be committed without a US ‘backstop’, presumably meaning the American cavalry would ride to the rescue if European forces bit off more than they could chew. During his visit to the White House last week, Starmer failed to persuade President Trump to agree to any such thing.
Even if these two apparently insurmountable obstacles could be overcome, does Britain have the military capability to lead the force as Starmer has suggested? The lead nation would have to not only provide a complex command structure but also an appreciable element of the force. Zelensky would like 100-200,000 troops involved. The British and French have been talking about a much more modest undertaking, perhaps 30,000. How such a small force would be able to control an 800-mile ceasefire line is hard to figure. That aside, we have a tiny and under-recruited army with a range of commitments in Estonia, Cyprus, the Falklands and at home, which would struggle to field even as few as 5,000 troops in Ukraine. Germany and Poland have said they won’t take part. The Baltic States, Holland, Sweden and Denmark, who have indicated they might be among ‘the willing’, could only send very small contingents.
If a force could be cobbled together, however, it would need to have the ability not just to monitor the ceasefire but also to fight and defend itself. That’s because, even if Russia agreed to it, don’t forget Starmer’s words: ‘Putin can’t be trusted’. Yet late last year the Defence Secretary said the armed forces are ‘not ready to fight’. Starmer has said there would be planes in the air as well as boots on the ground. Would they defend the ceasefire by shooting down Russian planes or missiles? Remember the MOD’s outright rejection of a no-fly zone over Ukraine in the early stages of the war. How long is this very costly force going to be in place? Until Putin is no more or goes back onto the offensive perhaps. What would be the reaction of a Labour government already deeply divided on its new defence policies if British soldiers were killed, either deliberately or accidentally?
If this force is to actually materialise, concerted pressure will need to be applied to Putin, and the place to start is to permanently confiscate frozen Russian assets in the UK and persuade other European countries to do the same. The Prime Minister will also need to use all the powers at his disposal to persuade Trump to supply the necessary back-up. And he should look further afield than Europe to fill the military manpower holes, including Australia and Canada.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
