Nicu Popescu, foreign minister of Moldova from 2021 to 2024 and who now resides at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has let the cat out of the bag. All the talk about European troops going to Ukraine isn’t about peacekeeping, but about “defending” Ukraine from Russia with fully-armed troops. “The problem with traditional peacekeeping missions is that they are bound by UN decisions, meaning Russia could veto it or terminate the mission at any time. Such a mission would also not be limited to Western countries but also have troops from other parts of the world,” he told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “What’s being discussed is a military presence to prevent another war. It means troops, not lightly armed peacekeepers, but equipped with antiaircraft, anti-electronic warfare capacities, to defend cities like Odesa and Kyiv.”
Popescu admits that is a “tall order” for European armies.
RFE/RL lists many obstacles, both military and political, to such a European deployment, not the least of which is that they could end up in combat against Russian forces, suggesting that it would be more than just a “tall order.”