Tag: russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sparked outrage by insisting that American troops must be deployed to Ukraine as part of any potential peace deal with Russia.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, Zelensky called for a massive Western peacekeeping force, including 200,000 European soldiers and U.S. troops, to enforce a ceasefire. His demand has drawn sharp criticism, particularly from those who question why American lives should be risked in a conflict thousands of miles from U.S. soil.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signaled openness to meeting with former U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss ending the war, further complicating the diplomatic landscape.

Zelensky’s bold request

Zelensky’s remarks at Davos were nothing short of audacious. “We need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers,” he declared. “From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing.”

He doubled down in an interview with Bloomberg, emphasizing that U.S. involvement is non-negotiable. “It can’t be without the United States. Even if some European friends think it can be, no, it can’t be. Nobody will risk without the United States,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader’s demand comes as Russia continues to advance in eastern Ukraine, with Moscow firmly rejecting any peace deal that includes a significant Western military presence. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has already dismissed similar proposals, stating that Moscow is “certainly not satisfied” with such arrangements. For Russia, Ukrainian neutrality is a key condition for peace, making Zelensky’s call for foreign troops a non-starter.

Zelensky’s insistence on U.S. troop deployment has drawn sharp criticism from those who argue that American soldiers should not be sent to die in a foreign conflict. Critics point out that Ukraine’s war with Russia is a regional dispute, and while the U.S. has provided significant military and financial aid, direct involvement risks escalating tensions and entangling the U.S. in a prolonged conflict.

Moreover, Zelensky’s demand raises questions about his strategy. By calling for a massive foreign military presence, he risks alienating allies who are already wary of escalating the conflict. His comments also highlight the growing desperation in Kyiv as Russian forces continue to make gains on the battlefield.

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Russia’s now unstoppable advance across eastern Ukraine ushers in the inevitability that Ukraine has lost, and the war will end. The election of Donald Trump ushers in the inevitability that the war will end with a negotiated settlement. Two things are now clear about that settlement: Ukraine will not be in NATO, and Russia will be in Ukraine.

Ukraine will not be in NATO because Russia will continue the war if NATO membership is on the agenda in the negotiations. But Ukraine will also not be in NATO because Trump has made it clear that he will not support NATO membership for Ukraine.

Russia will be in Ukraine because Russia will not return Crimea or, at least part of, the Donbas. But Russia will also be in Ukraine because Ukraine has now accepted that de facto reality. Though he refuses to legally acknowledge it, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has conceded that Crimea and the Donbas are lost to Ukraine. “De facto,” he said, “these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We don’t have the strength to bring them back.”

That leaves security guarantees for the remaining sovereign Ukraine as the key issue in the coming negotiations. Zelensky seems to now recognize that. In a January 22 Bloomberg interview, Zelensky said, “The only question is what security guarantees and honestly I want to have understanding before the talks. If [Trump] can guarantee this strong and irreversible security for Ukraine, we will move along this diplomatic path.”

Though Zelensky has said that “the only guarantee, currently or in the future, is NATO,” he will have to settle for his second choice. That second choice is a large European peace keeping force with the fully committed support of U.S. troops.

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Zelensky demanded a minimum of 200,000 European peacekeepers during the panel session that followed his speech at Davos, which itself saw him propose that France, Germany, Italy, and the UK combine their forces with Ukraine’s in order to counter Russia’s in nearly equal numbers. He also suggested that Trump will abandon Europe in order to cut a deal over Ukraine with Russia and China. The subtext is that they should organize a large-scale peacekeeping mission before that happens.

They’re unlikely to accede to his demand, however, for the same reason that the UK is unlikely to actually establish a military base in Ukraine like it agreed to explore doing in their new 100-year partnership pact. None of the Europeans want to risk a war with Russia where they’d be left fighting on their own without American support, not even the nuclear-armed UK and France, since Trump isn’t expected to extend Article 5 mutual defense guarantees to allies’ forces in third countries like Ukraine.

He, who loves having as much control over everything as possible, naturally wouldn’t feel comfortable knowing that others could provoke a war with Russia that might then drag in the US. Trump’s grand strategic goal is to wrap up the Ukrainian Conflict as soon as possible so as to prioritize his far-reaching domestic reform plans while “Pivoting (back) to Asia” to more muscularly contain China. Anything that could come in the way of that agenda, especially others provoking a war with Russia, is anathema.

That said, it can’t be ruled out the Europeans might assemble a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders for rapid deployment in the event of future hostilities, regardless of whether this is coordinated through US-controlled NATO or outside of it. For that to happen, however, Polish–Ukrainian ties would have to improve (Zelensky ignored Poland in his speech despite it having NATO’s third-largest army) and Romania’s populist frontrunner would have to lose May’s presidential election rerun.

Moreover, Europe would need to make meaningful progress on building the “military Schengen” for facilitating the movement of troops and equipment through the bloc to its eastern borders, otherwise whatever it assembles on the Ukrainian frontier and then sends across it would be logistically vulnerable. Polish-Ukrainian ties haven’t yet improved, Romania’s presidential election rerun hasn’t yet happened, and the “military Schengen” remains mostly on paper, all of which work against Zelensky’s plans.

Consequently, the likelihood of the Europeans assembling a large-scale force on Ukraine’s Polish and Romanian borders anytime soon is low, let alone them unilaterally deploying peacekeepers – whether 200,000 or just 2,000 – to Ukraine without prior US approval. Nevertheless, Zelensky’s Davos speech and panel session might serve to plant the seed of “ambitious thinking” in European policymakers’ minds, which could lead to them initiating such discussions with the US.

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