In Warsaw, Macron to talk of international troops in Ukraine

This was reported on Wednesday by Rzeczpospolita, Ukrinform saw.

The newspaper notes that last Saturday in Paris, Macron met with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, later joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“As far as I understand, Emmanuel Macron told Donald Trump that Europe not only cannot remain aloof from the U.S.-Russia negotiations, because it has its own serious security interests here, but is also ready to join this process financially and, above all, to bear the risks associated with protecting Ukrainian sovereignty,” the publication quotes former NATO Deputy Secretary General Camille Grand as saying.

As the publication emphasizes, given the military and geographical potential, Poland’s participation in a possible peacekeeping mission is a “key” issue.

The newspaper emphasizes that the essence of the French proposal is that the peacekeeping mission will guarantee that the Kremlin will not violate a possible ceasefire and the established demarcation line in the future. Back in February, Macron first put forward the idea of ​​sending NATO troops to Ukraine, without specifying conditions. He later expressed this view in more detail during a meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Paris on November 11. With a similar goal, on November 27, he spoke remotely with the leaders of the Scandinavian and Baltic states (NB8) and Poland, who gathered in Sweden.

Elie Tenenbaum, an expert with the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), who is working on the project of such a mission, explained that it could consist of five brigades of about 40,000 soldiers in total. In return, Poland could take command of one of them.

According to Grand, there are three ways to provide Ukraine with security guarantees: German, Israeli, and Korean. “German” means accepting the country into NATO even without its borders being re-established, as was the case with Germany in 1955. However, the U.S. and Germany do not want this. The “Israeli” model involves massive arms supplies to Ukraine even after truce is concluded. This is also an uncertain scenario, given the budgetary challenges in both the United States and Europe. In contrast, the “Korean” model implies an international peacekeeping mission that has been guarding the demarcation line between South and North Koreas for over 70 years.

“It is on this third model, incorporating elements of the first and second ones, that security guarantees for Kyiv should be based,” the former senior NATO official believes.

The expert emphasized that Poland, with its growing military potential and geographical proximity, is becoming a necessary element of such a plan. This is precisely why Macron is coming to Poland. In his opinion, in addition to France and Poland, the mission could also include Germany (after the parliamentary elections in February 2025), the Netherlands, the UK, the Scandinavian countries, and the United States, even in a symbolic sense.

However, the publication admits that the biggest problem on this path may be the uncompromising position of Vladimir Putin, who is currently sending no signals that he is ready to abandon plans for full control over Ukraine.

As reported, Poland has recently repeatedly stated that there is currently no discussion on the possible sending of NATO troops in Ukraine. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense of the Republic of Poland, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, recently noted that Poland is training Ukrainian troops on its soil and has no intention of deploying its troops in Ukraine.

Photo: gettyimages