Skepticism of the Western ‘security umbrella’ for Ukraine

“Security guarantee” is a phrase that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used countless times in the battle with US President Donald Trump at the White House last week and since then.

During a White House meeting, Zelensky pointed out that Ukraine signed the Minsk agreement with Russia, France and Germany, also known as the Normandy quartet, in the capital of Belarus in 2015, to end the bloody conflict that lasted 10 months in eastern Ukraine. However, this ceasefire agreement did not have any security measures of stakeholders and did not prevent Russia from conducting “Special Military Campaign” in February 2022.

When President Trump promoted a new ceasefire agreement with Russia to end three years of conflict, Mr. Zelensky kept clicking on the question of how Ukraine could be sure that Russia would comply with the agreement and did not continue to bring troops into the country for one or two years later.

But President Trump has publicly rejected the concern of the Ukrainian counterpart. “Security is too easy, only accounting for about 2% of the problem,” he said in the White House meeting on February 28.

The answer to the White House boss given to Ukrainian security is still quite vague, in addition to claiming that Europe will handle the problem without the need for the United States.

“This is not a difficult agreement,” the US president earlier this week said, a few hours after announcing the suspension of military aid to Ukraine.

He also suggested that the fact that American mining companies present in Ukraine were more than enough to ensure Kiev’s security and prevent Moscow. “I don’t think anyone who wants to joke if many of our engineers and workers are present there,” the president said.

But the fact that many US companies operated in Ukraine had just before Russia launched a war in February 2022.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to have a more realistic view. In an interview with the channel Fox News Last week, he said, “What Ukraine really needs is a deterrent measure to make anyone want to target them once again to pay expensive prices.”

He noted that this task was not only placed on the United States but “Europe could also participate”.

But some other US officials have expressed that Washington will not contribute to that deterrent effort. Defense Minister Pete Hegseth said the European peacekeeping force present in Ukraine will not be protected according to NATO’s collective defense principles. This means that if European soldiers in Ukraine are attacked, the US will not interfere with NATO’s framework.

US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz declared the issue of security assurance for Ukraine “entirely in Europe”.

European leaders on March 2 summit in London, England, to start looking for some answers to Ukraine’s problems as well as longer solutions for the rift of the Radian Pastor.

“This is a unique moment with European security,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer emphasized, and called on the establishment of a “goodwill alliance” to support Ukraine.

“Europe understands one thing: the peace agreement, if any, is not merely about the issue of dividing Ukraine territory or ensuring quick ceasefire, but also for a long -term and safe peace, on the existing security issues for the entire Europe,” Wolfgang Ischinger, former German Ambassador in the United States, wrote above Foreign Affairs.

But experts Claudia Major and Aldo Kleemann at the Institute of International and German Security issues said in a newly published article that Europe is currently “lacking in military capacity, political will and the necessary unity” to shoulder the mission to ensure security for Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron believes that the European army will be deployed to Ukraine for a few weeks after the peace agreement is signed with the consensus from the Russian side.

However, he acknowledged that the supervision of a ceasefire along the battle line up to 1,000 km long in Ukraine would be extremely difficult. Peacekeeping force will have to be arranged, operating between forests, immense fields and ruin urban areas with poor transport infrastructure, not even.

Britain and France have expressed their desire to become part of the peacekeeping force in Ukraine. But the reaction from other European countries is quite superficial. The German Prime Minister is about to satisfy Olaf Scholz, saying that this peacekeeping campaign “requires efforts that many people have not really prepared”.

Other allies dodged the question of whether they were willing to send troops to join the peacekeeping sect in Ukraine. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the plan to deploy the army to Ukraine “has never been discussed”.

Prime Minister Starmer once said efforts to ensure security for Ukraine “have to receive strong support from the United States”, but this is also not sure.

The size, duties and powers of this force are quite vague. European countries have not yet shaped it as a small deterrent force, or a large army equipped with full self -defense.

The United Nations plan to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine is difficult because it needs to be passed at the Security Council, where Russia has the right to veto.

Major and Kleemann warned that if Europe deployed too few troops for peacekeeping forces and praying that they would not face any uncertainties would be an “irresponsible” view.

At the summit in London last weekend, President Zelensk gave the same viewpoint, emphasizing that Ukraine “needed very specific security guarantees and for those who ensure very specific” to conflict without broken out again.

A complete peacekeeping force will need at least 100,000 soldiers to be able to monitor the 1,000 km long battle line in Ukraine. This is too large for the army of each individual European country, especially when taking into account the necessary rotation. To compare, the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo in 1999 had 48,000 soldiers. Ukraine area is 50 times larger than Kosovo.

According to analysts, such a force deployment will require a significant demilitarist (DMZ) to separate the battle parties and communicate regularly with both parties to resolve violations.

In addition, they think that the two sides need to outline the control and draw heavy weapons away from a minimum of 40 km, and no other party is allowed to bring the drone (UAV) into DMZ.

According to Mick Ryan, author of Military blog Futura Doctrina, when interfering with a conflict that UAV and missiles have changed almost completely the nature of the battlefield, peacekeeping force will need “electronic warfare, anti -UAV and strong anti -cockroaches”.

They will also face countless other escalation risks. If the Russian forces fired long -range artillery shells on the outpost of French or British soldiers at DMZ in Ukraine, whether this triggered NATO’s collective defense terms and made the military alliance confronted Russia directly?

A ceasefire if not strictly controlled is difficult to work. “The situation will be extremely unstable, the war can completely recur,” Marc Weller, an international law professor at the Cambridge initiative on peaceful arrangement.

According to Matthew Schmidt, a professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven, USA, any actual security measure must include a significant presence of international forces in the field, backing from the US and Ukraine troops to be strengthened and modernized.

He said 100,000 peacekeepers, along with the infantry force of about 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers, could be deterred enough. This figure is equivalent to about 1/3 of the Russian forces deployed near the fighting place.

But even the best equipped peacekeeping force still needs air transport, satellite tracking and US missile defense systems to prevent new attacks. These are all the capabilities that Europe is lacking.

President Zelensky affirmed that “the best security is a strong and sufficient Ukrainian army”. Ukraine needs more range missiles from the West to allow them to attack the supplies and the Russian Logistics Center, as well as the stronger air force, in the case of a continuous battle.

But unless the Kremlin is forced to negotiate, all of this is just unrealistic, observers evaluate. The Russian Foreign Ministry has stated that the presence of Western army in Ukraine, whether on behalf of the NATO Union, is “completely unacceptable”.

Russian State News Agency Ria Novosti On March 4, quoting the Foreign Intelligence Department said that being a force of 100,000 peacekeeping troops to Ukraine “will be equivalent to actual occupation acts”.

In the context that the Trump administration implies the reduction of US military presence in Europe and then decided to stop military aid to Ukraine, all the attention is focusing on the next moves of the continental leaders.

Europe can only contribute to the security assurance that Ukraine needs through developing its own defense capacity, combining strengthening research, production and military training. This will not happen overnight.

However, the steps to restore the European defense industry have taken place and now, they only need to accelerate further.

The European Commission (EC) is very optimistic about building the Fund for the Defense industry of the continent. The European Commission Chairman Ursula Von Der Leyen has proposed to allow EU countries to borrow more than $ 160 billion and spend up to US $ 865 billion on defense budgets in the coming years.

She said EU members can “need demand and buy together, and of course, with this tool, they can promote support for Ukraine strongly”.