Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had discussed with Macron an initiative to station international forces in Ukraine. The initiative includes the potential expansion of the contingent and the involvement of other countries.
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UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are discussing sending a peacekeeping force to Ukraine after any deal to end the conflict, The Telegraph newspaper reported, citing sources.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had discussed with Macron an initiative to station international forces in Ukraine. This initiative includes the potential expansion of the contingent and the involvement of other countries.
Details of the talks are being kept secret, the report said on Wednesday, adding, however, that Starmer remains cautious about of the initiative, while Macron continues to promote the idea.
"There are challenges over what we could support, what would we want to support, and the broader question about the threat that those troops may be under and whether that is escalatory," one of the sources was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
In December, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reportedly told Macron that Polish troops would not enter Ukraine even after a ceasefire.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) previously said that the West would deploy a so-called peacekeeping contingent of about 100,000 people in order to restore Ukraine's combat capability. The SVR believes that this would be a de facto occupation of Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the deployment of peacekeepers was possible only with the consent of the parties to a particular conflict.
Sputnik