Europe is drawing up ‘pretty precise’ plans to deploy troops from across the continent to Ukraine as part of a US-backed security guarantee.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the FT that the deployment may see tens of thousands of European-led and American-backed troops sent to Ukraine.
The US is expected to assist with command and control systems and intelligence and surveillance assets, she said.
Von der Leyen told the FT: ‘President Trump reassured us that there will be (an) American presence as part of the backstop. That was very clear and repeatedly affirmed.’
She added that the arrangement was made following a meeting between Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and senior European leaders last month.
The European leader said that while European military assets may be deployed on the ground, they would be there to support the Ukrainian army’s deterrence capabilities.
But she admitted that Europe would need to find new ways to pay for the ‘sustainable financing of the Ukrainian armed forced as… a security guarantee’.
Kyiv would need ‘quite a sizeable number of soldiers and they need good salaries and of course, modern equipment . . . it’s for sure the EU that will have to chip in’, she said.
Von der Leyen added that existing funding streams for Ukraine would need to remain in peacetime, meaning that ‘an extra payment… has to be provided for the Ukrainian armed forces’.
It comes just days ahead of a meeting of European leaders in Paris, which will include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and von der Leyen, at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.
They are expected to continue high-level discussions on Ukraine.
At the same time, Russian despot Vladimir Putin said following discussions with China and India that NATO’s eastward enlargement would have to be addressed for there to be sustainable peace in Ukraine.
On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Tianjin, Modi held Putin’s hand as they walked towards Chinese President Xi. All three smiled as they spoke, surrounded by translators.
Speaking at the summit, Putin said the West had tried to bring Ukraine into the West’s orbit and then sought to entice the former Soviet republic into the US-led NATO military alliance.
‘In order for a Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis, which I have just mentioned and which I have repeatedly mentioned before, must be eliminated,’ Putin said.
‘A fair balance in the security sphere’ must be also restored, Putin said, shorthand for a series of Russian demands about NATO and European security.
At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO leaders agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members. Ukraine in 2019 amended its constitution committing to the path of full membership of NATO and the European Union.
Reuters reported in May that Putin’s conditions for ending the war include a demand that Western leaders pledge in writing to stop enlarging NATO eastwards and lift a chunk of sanctions on Russia.
Putin said that ‘understandings’ he reached with U.S. President Donald Trump at a summit in Alaska in August opened a way to peace in Ukraine, which he would discuss with leaders attending the regional summit in China.
‘We highly appreciate the efforts and proposals from China and India aimed at facilitating the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,’ Putin told the forum.
‘The understandings reached at the recent Russia–U.S. meeting in Alaska, I hope, also contribute toward this goal.’
He said he had detailed to Xi on Sunday the achievements of his talks with Trump and the work ‘already underway’ to resolve the conflict and would provide more detail in two-way meetings with the Chinese leader and others.
