No Western troops in Ukraine without Russian approval – Germany
Both Moscow and Kiev would need to be on board with any initiative involving the deployment of Western peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has said.
Some EU leaders have raised the possibility of a Western peacekeeping force in Ukraine if a ceasefire is reached. Donald Trump, set to be sworn in as US president next month, recently stated that he wants to bring both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to the negotiating table.
Pistorius stressed that any discussion of a European troop presence in the conflict is premature, speaking at a press conference in Berlin on Monday.
“If there is a ceasefire, then, of course, the Western community, NATO partners, possibly the United Nations, and the EU will have to discuss how such a peace, such a ceasefire can be secured,” he said.
Pistorius added that, as the EU’s largest economy, Germany “would play a role there,” without elaborating on what the role would entail. He noted that a mandate for a foreign peacekeeping force would also need to be defined.
“It must be clear that the two nations negotiating for the ceasefire, Ukraine and Russia, have to agree on a mandate they would accept and on the participants of such a mandate,” Pistorius said.
On Tuesday, Zelensky stated that he expects to be in direct contact with the White House after Trump’s inauguration to find out which points of his so-called ‘peace formula’ the new US president supports. Moscow has previously dismissed Zelensky’s initiatives as completely divorced from reality.
The Kremlin has argued that Kiev is not ready to negotiate. “The Ukrainian side still refuses to hold any negotiations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday. He stressed that Zelensky has “legally forbidden himself from these negotiations,” referring to the Ukrainian leader’s 2022 decree banning any talks with Putin.
Therefore, Peskov said, “it is premature to talk about everything else, namely peacekeepers, at this time.”
