Diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine have intensified in recent days, prompting European countries to consider sending peacekeeping forces with a new sense of urgency, writes the English-language editorial staff of Radio Free Europe (RFE).
When French President Emmanuel Macron first mentioned the idea of a European force to ensure Ukraine's post-war security a year ago, it did not cause much of a stir, nor was it taken seriously by experts.
That has changed now.
Suggestions by the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, that Europe would not be "at the table" during negotiations on the future of Ukraine have given further impetus to European leaders to position themselves as relevant actors. US-Russian talks on Ukraine held in Saudi Arabia on February 18 have further increased the pressure.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof has made it clear: Europeans must agree on what they can offer, "and that way we will eventually get a seat at the table."
But that's not the only reason for reviving this idea.
"This will be a difficult task for Europe, but it cannot be avoided if Russia's threat to NATO is to be stopped in Ukraine," said Jamie Shea, a former senior NATO official.
Shea estimates that around 50.000 European troops would be needed, which would mean a total military structure of 150.000 soldiers with "seamless rotations".
The Paris meeting on February 17th failed to produce a clear breakthrough, but the discussion is now in earnest. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has invested political capital in the project ahead of a meeting with US President Donald Trump next week.
However, Starmer also hinted that the mission would require US involvement, mentioning American “security support” such as air power. Shea, who was NATO’s spokesman during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, warns that this could be a problem.
"Europeans will be aware of the fiasco in Bosnia in the early 1990s, when European forces were on the ground while the Americans, who were safely in the air, were constantly criticizing them," Shea said.
Starmer's statements about his willingness to send troops have attracted attention, but also serious warnings about the UK's limited military capabilities. Critics include Richard Dennutt, the former head of the British army, who claims that the military is "so weakened" that it cannot lead the mission.
The British military has been largely focused on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations since 2001. It has suffered cuts in the past decade, and a parliamentary report in September said the UK was "inadequately prepared" to deal with the Russian threat.
In July, Starmer himself declared that the British armed forces were "weakened from within."
The second major military power in Europe is France.
The French army is larger than the British, but years of military operations across Africa have strained its capabilities. French analysts have expressed doubts about the military's ability to handle high-intensity conflicts like the one in Ukraine.
"We only have six long-range missile launchers, we have no real capabilities to combat drones," Léo Périad Peigné of the French Institute of International Relations warned in November.
Sweden and the Netherlands have signaled that they would be willing to send troops under certain conditions. Poland, although it has a large army, has explicitly rejected that possibility.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who earlier left the Paris talks, said he was "irritated" by this "premature" discussion.
Polls in Germany suggest Scholz will lose the federal election on February 23rd, but will remain in power for several more months while negotiations on forming a new government take place. After the election, however, he may be more inclined to the idea of sending German troops to Ukraine.
Jürgen Hardt, a lawmaker from the main opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) party, told Radio Free Europe that he could imagine German troops under the flag of the United Nations. The CDU is expected to be the leading party in a future German government.
"I do not rule out a military role for Germany if there were a peace solution based on a United Nations resolution, where international forces would be called upon to monitor or contribute to that peace," Hardt said.
This raises a key question about how realistic such a mission is.
Niku Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Relations sees an additional obstacle.
"The problem with traditional peacekeeping missions is that they depend on UN decisions, which means that Russia could veto them or terminate them at any time," Popescu, who served as Moldova's foreign minister from 2021 to 2024, told RFE/RL last month.
Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has the right of veto.
Popescu said at the time that most of the discussions were not about peacekeeping forces, but about deterrence. Jamie Shea agrees, highlighting two other key issues.
"Do we use NATO forces that are currently defending NATO borders in Central and Eastern Europe? Poland is against that. And should we focus more on strengthening the Ukrainian army as the main deterrent force and spend money on that, instead of a European security force, as Denmark advocates?"
Political factors also play a role. Polling in Western Europe consistently shows low levels of support for sending troops to Ukraine.
The risks of sending such a contingent, even in a non-combat role, would be enormous. The rules of engagement would have to clearly define how to respond if Russian forces opened fire, and the political consequences of losses could be enormous.
"That will be difficult to implement," said Niklas Granholm of the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
"If you go from west to east, you have what I called the axis of fear earlier. Eastern European countries feel this very clearly. The further west you go, the less obvious it is."
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