Few European countries would risk sending their soldiers to Ukraine as part of some kind of a peacekeeping force, former Swedish military officer and politician Mikael Valtersson told Sputnik.
He outlined two potential scenarios of peacekeeper deployment in the Ukrainian conflict zone, with the basis for both being “a ceasefire along the current front lines and no Ukrainian NATO membership in the foreseeable future.”
The first scenario involves an international peacekeeping force comprised of troops from countries or regions unaffiliated with the participants of the Ukrainian conflict, such as “Türkiye, India, Latin America, Africa, ASEAN and maybe European countries like Hungary and Slovakia.”
The second scenario, where EU troops would be sent as peacekeepers, would likely result in Russia perceiving it as a breach of any ceasefire and would restart the fighting “long before the Western forces reached the front lines.”
As a result, Europe would be left with a conflict “involving several European countries, but without the backing of NATO or the US,” so it is small wonder that, as Valtersson put it, “it would be impossible to get unity within Europe about such a mission.”
“Instead, the fighting probably will continue during 2025, without US support, until Ukraine realises that they must accept the situation on the ground. But then the conditions might be even more severe for Ukraine,” Valtersson mused. “They lost a great opportunity to get a good deal during the Istanbul negotiations and risk gambling away even more now.”
“A much more plausible scenario for European military involvement on the ground in Ukraine is that some of the more hawkish nations send support units and ‘instructors’ to Ukraine,” Valtersson warned. These European troops would become prime targets for Russia, he added, without actually having “much impact” on the outcome of the conflict.
