British troops will not be sent to Ukraine unless there is confidence in their safety

The UK’s Chief of the Air Staff and Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, has named the condition under which troops could be sent to Ukrainian territory after the end of hostilities as part of security guarantees.

Sky News reports this.

Conservative Party MP Jesse Norman asked whether British troops deployed to oversee a peace agreement would be well equipped and prepared. In response, Knighton said that there are no “zero risks” in an operational environment, and that the job of the military leadership is to assess those risks and ensure that “the benefits of deploying troops outweigh any possible risks.”

On January 6 in Paris, the leaders of Ukraine and France, Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron, together with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, following a meeting of the “coalition of the willing,” signed a Declaration of Intent to deploy multinational forces in Ukraine after the conflict ends. According to Starmer, the contingent would be able to ensure the security of the country’s air and maritime space and help strengthen its armed forces. According to The Times, Paris and London together could send a maximum of 15,000 service members, which is significantly less than the number initially envisaged.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called Western plans to send peacekeepers to Ukraine “fantasies” and has stressed that the appearance of NATO troops there, even under another flag, is unacceptable to Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has called foreign troops that might arrive in the neighboring country a legitimate target.