Dozens of military chiefs from countries keen to help protect an eventual ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine will meet in Britain on Thursday to discuss planning for a peacekeeping force.<\/p>\n
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, co-leader of efforts to form the so-called coalition of the willing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, is expected to address the meeting of roughly 30 military officials, AFP said.<\/p>\n
It comes amid huge questions over what the group can do after Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded an end to Western military aid to Ukraine as a condition for any end to fighting.<\/p>\n
Russia has also ruled out accepting any foreign troops on Ukrainian soil as part of a ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n
Starmer and Macron have been trying to build the coalition since US President Donald Trump opened direct negotiations with Russia last month to end the three-year-long war.<\/p>\n
They say the group is necessary — along with US support — to provide Ukraine with security guarantees that would deter Putin from violating any ceasefire.<\/p>\n
But during a 90-minute call on Tuesday, Putin told Trump a comprehensive deal would be contingent on the West halting all military aid and intelligence to Ukraine, the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n
The Russian leader told his US counterpart that for a full ceasefire to work, Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm and must halt mandatory mobilization.<\/p>\n
Instead, Russia agreed to a 30-day limited halt on strikes against Ukraine’s power grid. On Wednesday, both Ukraine and Russia accused each other of continuing to strike energy infrastructure targets.<\/p>\n
Starmer and Macron have said they are willing to put British and French troops on the ground in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The UK government says a “significant number” of nations are prepared to do the same, but it is not clear exactly how many countries are keen.<\/p>\n
Britain expects more than 30 nations to contribute to the coalition in some form.<\/p>\n
The prime minister has said he welcomes any offer of support for the group, raising the prospect that some countries could contribute logistics or surveillance.<\/p>\n
His spokesman on Monday highlighted engineering support, the use of airfields and the housing of crews as areas where contributions could be made.<\/p>\n
Starmer told a virtual call of fellow leaders on Saturday that the Thursday meeting comes as planning for the coalition moves into the “operational phase”.<\/p>\n
Trump’s indications that Washington will no longer guarantee European and Ukrainian security has spooked the United States’ NATO allies and prompted many countries to make moves towards increases in defense spending.<\/p>\n
The US president said on Wednesday following a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that efforts to end the war “are very much on track”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dozens of military chiefs from countries keen to help protect an eventual ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine will meet in Britain on Thursday to discuss planning for a peacekeeping force. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, co-leader of efforts to form the so-called coalition of the willing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, is expected to address …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44966,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44965\/revisions\/44966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}