European leaders are pulling back from the idea of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine, admitting that the idea is unworkable, Reuters reported on March 26.

The UK-led “coalition of the willing” has proposed sending a force of around 30,000 peacekeepers to Ukraine to maintain the peace should a ceasefire deal be agreed between Moscow and Kyiv. However, as bne IntelliNews reported last month, the idea is extremely problematic, as Europe lacks the manpower to staff the force, many EU countries have refused to participate and the Kremlin has flatly refused to agree to the idea, which it says would be an escalation and the forces would become legitimate military targets.

European countries are struggling to establish a some sort of security framework for Ukraine to prevent a second invasion should a ceasefire be agreed, but are shying away from giving real Nato Article-5-like security deals for fear of being dragged into a direct conflict with Russia.

While UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said Britain is willing to send 10,000 troops and French President Emmanuel Macron, who launched the idea, has said France will also participate, many other major countries remain on the fence. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said he won’t send troops as Poland’s role is to protect Europe’s eastern boarders and on March 26 Finland, which has Europe’s most battle-ready force, said it will not send peacekeepers as it also has to protect a long boarder with Russia.

There have been several meetings of the coalition of the willing, attended by defence heads of over 30 countries, but so far only 18 countries from the 27 members of the EU have indicated they will “support”, but not necessarily participate in, the peacekeepers’ effort. Notably, a definitive list of which countries are members of the coalition of the willing has yet to be published.

After almost a month of discussion, European leaders are now increasingly backing away from deploying troops in the face of political, logistical and diplomatic obstacles, Reuters reports.

Ukraine is still holding out hope for a substantial contribution from European countries to a potential peacekeeping mission, which should include combat-ready troops rather than just symbolic peacekeepers, said Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in an interview with French news agency AFP.

Zhovkva said that Ukraine does not need "peacekeepers, blue helmets, unarmed or whatever", or European forces present just for the sake of being present. But Kyiv also does not expect the peacekeepers "to fight with Russia" either. However, he added that the peacekeepers need to be ready for various scenarios, “including missile or drone attacks.”

"If European countries are serious about making their input, they should be really serious," Zhovkva told AFP.

Kyiv has also asked for significant numbers of peacekeepers. Zelenskiy has called for a force of 200,000 men, while experts have said that an effective force to patrol the 1,200-km-long line of contact should be some 120,000 men.

"We don't need just 5,000 or 10,000,” Zhovkva said. "And it's not the amount that matters. It's also their readiness to fight, their readiness to defend, their readiness to be equipped, and their readiness to understand that Ukraine is an inevitable part of European security," he added.

Europe lacks resources

France and Britain have been spearheading discussions aimed at developing alternatives to direct military involvement and Macron has called for another EU defence conference in Paris on March 27 to continue the discussion. However, as the Trump administration pulls back and in effect withdraws its promise of providing European security, European leaders have been left scrambling to belatedly provide their own security. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched an €800bn ReArm initiative earlier this month, but due to decades of chronic underinvestment into the European defence sector it will take years for Europe to match Russia’s defence sector production, say experts.

Leaders and delegations from approximately 30 countries are expected to arrive in Paris today to look for fresh ideas to safeguard Ukraine’s security but have few options on the table without Washington’s willing participation. As bne IntelliNews reported, Trump has switched from the values-based policies where the US underpins the Western world’s commitment to the rules-based order and is now following a transactional multipolar model based purely on action in America’s own interests and abandoning the values completely. To underscore the point, Trump announced on March 26 that the US will impose a 25% tariff on the import of European cars from the start of April that will badly hurt the European automotive sector that is already reeling from Europe’s deindustrialisation and historically high energy costs.

Despite weeks of Anglo-French planning to deploy thousands of troops to Ukraine to enforce a future ceasefire, diplomatic sources told Reuters that the likelihood of European peacekeepers appearing in Ukraine is diminishing. “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,” one European diplomat told the news agency.

Another diplomat noted that enthusiasm for sending troops has waned in light of the evolving military situation and the current stance of the United States. “When Ukraine was in a better position, the idea of sending troops appealed. But now, with the situation on the ground and the US administration as it is, it's not very sexy,” the official said.

Moscow has categorically rejected any proposals involving the deployment of Nato troops to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the White House is increasingly sympathetic to the Russian position. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff caused a scandal by openly parroting many of the Kremlin’s talking points in a recent interview with US celebrity journalist Tucker Carlson on March 22.

Trump’s envoy dismissed the coalition of the wiling as “a posture and a pose” during the interview and called it political theatre.