If you send you troops into a war zone what do you think is going to happen?
European troops deployed to Ukraine would respond to a Russian attack, French president Emmanuel Macron warned.
After a meeting in Paris, France, between Mr Macron and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, he said European troops would fight Putin’s troops if attacked by them after any ceasefire agreement.
“If there was again a generalised aggression against Ukrainian soil, these armies would be under attack and then it’s our usual framework of engagement,” he said.
It comes after senior Zelensky aide ZIgor Zhovkva said British troops must be ready to fight Vladimir Putin’s forces to defend Ukraine.
Mr Zhovkva said European soldiers should be prepared to fight Russia and defend Ukraine if deployed to the country after any ceasefire agreement.
So, wait, they’re now talking about a ceasefire? Isn’t that what Trump wanted? Of course, just a few hours earlier Reuters reported
Europe’s talks on Ukraine security shift from sending troops
European efforts to create security arrangements for Ukraine are shifting from sending troops to other alternatives as they face political and logistical constraints, and the prospect of Russia and the United States opposing their plans, officials said.
France, which has been working closely with Britain to come up with options, will host 30 leaders and delegations from around 30 countries on Thursday, part of what has become a “coalition of the willing” to try and flesh out some ideas.
But while London and Paris have been working for weeks on a plan to send thousands of troops to Ukraine to help safeguard a future ceasefire, diplomats say there is growing acceptance that sending such a force is not the likeliest outcome.
“They are taking a step back from ground troops and trying to re-dimension what they were doing to something that could be more sensible,” said one European diplomat.
Here’s a reality: Russia has nuclear weapons. France and the UK do have some, 290 and 225 respectively, mostly as deterrents to Russia. Five other NATO nations host US nuclear weapons. These same people tell us Putin is nuts. Is that who you want to push? For Ukraine? Do you want to risk a large scale war involving NATO nations and Russia, and the potential for nuclear escalation? Oh, and let’s not forget how many European NATO nations get fossil fuels from Russia. Germany, France, Italy, and several others gets energy from Russia, mostly natural gas. How’s that going to go?
Of course, putting any “peacekeeping” troops in Ukraine is way ahead of the curve, since the EU hasn’t been quite on the same page as Trump in trying to get a ceasefire to start with.
Seems to me that the best way for Russia to keep NATO troops outy of Ukraine is to not agree to any ceasefire.
Russia’s goal is to keep Ukraine out of NATO, to keep NATO installations further away from Russia’s borders. This is hardly a surprise: The USSR had this goal with the old Warsaw Pact nations, so this is just a weakened continuation of that. With Monsour Macron talking about British and French troops being deployed to Ukraine, Russia should want to avoid the ceasefire which would allow them in the country.
That’s a de facto NATO admission for Ukraine, rather than a de jure one to which the United States would have to consent.
Are these guys insane? Do they really want to poke the nuclear-armed Russian bear?
Donald Trump is the only sane one in the room, the only one smart enough to realize that nuclear war is a bad thing, and ought to be avoided.
It is a special type of insanity. They know that NATO is backed by the USA and all of the EU armies put together are insufficient to this task. They hope to force the Trump administration to remain locked into Ukraine just like they are, so that the USA continues to pay the bills, even though it is obvious that None of the EU nations populations want to be in Ukraine and the USA certainly doesn’t want this. They are deluded into thinking that if they have Armies in Ukraine, Russia wouldn’t DARE attack them, or the USA would be forced to respond. The NATO charter doesn’t work like that. They don’t want a peaceful settlement. They still think they can win if they force Russia to surrender. It is almost as if a whole lot of EU aristocrats are getting their own pockets lined by keeping the war in Ukraine going.
One thing we know for sure, no one related to an EU politician will be at risk in any army in Ukraine.
What I suspect is that EU politicians are terrified that Trump is withdrawing from Europe because he is tired of their shit. They want to force the USA to stay mired in European shenanigans at least until another president can take over and return to status quo.
The good Professor wrote:
Except, of course, the Russian walkover predicted never materialized, and Ukraine’s military has been able to force what is mostly a stalemate, over three years of war. The feared Red Army that defeated the Wehrmacht and was supposed to be seething just beyond the Fulda Gap to roll over the European democracies sure isn’t what has shown up in Ukraine.
This isn’t a real surprise to those of us who know something about history. In 1940, Josef Stalin decided that it was time to restore the old Duchy of Finland to the USSR, and the Russians gave a very poor account of themselves against the Finns as well. Finland was only defeated in the Winter War when Comrade Stalin threw in hundreds of thousands of new, unplanned troops into that war and basically drowned the Finns in Russian blood.
The Russkies aren’t particularly good fighters in expansionist wars.
Dana,
Russia != USSR.
Sort of makes you wonder if that is their goal.
The “Ruskies” have made their goals pretty clear from the beginning: 1. No NATO expansion into Ukraine, 2, Demilitarization of Ukraine, 3, De-nazification of Ukraine. If you believe the “Ruskies” about what their real goals are, it seems that are indeed pursuing their actual stated goals not the neo-con fictional goals of taking over Europe or even re-establishing the old USSR.
Oh, I’m pretty sure that their initial goal was complete conquest; keeping Ukraine out of NATO is the fallback goal.
De-Nazification? Ukraine isn’t the greatest place in the world, but it’s better than Russia and the Nazi complaints are mostly bovine feces. Even if they were total Nazis, the Ukrainians posed no threat to Russia.
Note there is a definition of insanity where one believes two contradictory positions in their head at the same time and sees no contradiction. Like Russia is a threat to all of Europe and has plans to roll over all of Europe, but the same Russia cannot win in Ukraine and have been fought to a standstill by a country 1/4 their size.