Name: Europe pledges to deploy troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire deal is reached | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-08T17:08:25.000Z
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Britain and France say that they are prepared to send troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire deal is reached with Russia.

The announcement came at a meeting of Ukraine supporters in Paris.

Some 30 countries, including the United States, met to hammer out the security guarantees that Kyiv says it needs before it can agree any peace deal with Russia.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, arriving in Paris to discuss security guarantees at the heart of US Led efforts to broker an end to Russia's war.

Also in attendance, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

At the Paris meeting, the leaders of France and Britain pledged to deploy troops if a ceasefire is reached, with the United States also signaling willingness to be involved.

Today there are various layers of security guarantees in which the United States has clarified its participation and in particular, what we call monitoring, meaning the surveillance of the front line.

President Zelensky said the agreements showed Kyiv's partners were serious about Ukraine's security.

The details have been worked out in documents.

It's been determined which countries are ready to guarantee security on the ground, in the sky, at sea, in reconstruction.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and other leaders said they were also prepared to make contributions.

US Envoy Steve Witkoff said future negotiations could now focus on the significant territorial disputes.

We think we're largely finished with security protocols, which are important so that the people of Ukraine know that when this ends, it ends forever.

Despite the diplomatic pressure, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is in no hurry to end the conflict by peaceful means.

And NATO troops in Ukraine is one red line that Moscow has repeatedly said it is unwilling to accept.

And let's speak now to DW correspondent Rosie Burchard, who has been covering this story for us from Paris.

Britain and France, as we've heard, said that they would send troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is reached with Russia.

Have officials said what Britain and France's mandate in Ukraine might look like?

So far, we've heard Britain and Ukraine talking about setting Britain and France rather talking about setting up military hubs in Ukraine.

But there have been precious fewer details than that they signed a declaration of intent that they say could pave the way for a legal framework that to put European troops on Ukrainian soil after a cease fire in the event of a cease fire.

And of course, there's a whole lot of caveats here, the biggest one being that there is no ceasefire in place and really no cease fire in sight.

There are a few that believe that Russia has any real intention of brokering peace at the moment and Then of course, there are this, this lack of details for the time being.

That's not to say that this isn't a step forward.

We have never had such a concrete commitment to looking at what these security guarantees could actually function toward and putting that on to the page.

So this is something new that we've seen from the coalition of the whaling, almost a year after it was set up for this exact purpose, to outline what security guarantees after a cease fire could look like.

But still, still, I think if you're in Ukraine living under Russian bombardment, this will only seem like a very small step toward peace.

And Rosie, the German Chancellor has also talked about the potential role of Germany post cease fire.

He essentially didn't rule anything out, but

didn't outline exactly what any sort of German contribution inside Ukraine could look like and indeed what that might be.

He Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, was clear to say that he would need approval from the German government and the German parliament for any sort of deployment like that, although he did speak about potentially deploying German troops to a neighboring NATO country.

So in a sense it was a bit of a non announcement from Germany.

But that's not to be confused with no contribution from Germany because it really is right up there when you look at Ukraine's top military and financial backers and merits.

Was very keen to stress that point as well.

This was definitely a kind of Franco British moment in terms of new announcements.

We saw US President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner offering strong signals of backing from Ukraine.

That's coming after a year of fluctuating US support.

How is the US Backing being seen by Ukraine and its European allies?

This was really a kind of rare moment of transatlantic alignment with the US Talking about really being willing to step in here, have some involvement in these post cease fire security guarantees, even talking about a US led ceasefire monitoring mission.

And Emmanuel Macron was keen to say that he had secured what is sometimes referred to as a backstop.

So some sort of a commitment from the United States that it would support militarily in some way or other potential European peacekeeping troops, potential European boots on the ground in future.

But let's be clear, there are still some really gray zones here.

Text that was released after these talks contained the word proposed.

There may need to be approval from U.S. lawmakers.

So it's not as ironclad, I think, as Emmanuel Macron, the French president, would like to frame it as exactly when it comes to how the US might be involved.

DW correspondent Rosie Burchard in Paris.