The Europeans are still demanding U.S. backup for a European troop deployment in Ukraine, despite Moscow’s clear indication that it won’t accept European troops in Ukraine.
French Finance Minister Eric Lombard told Bloomberg yesterday that he expects the U.S. to provide backup for European troops to help maintain peace once a ceasefire is agreed upon between Ukraine and Russia. “If we want a ceasefire to be respected, we need a U.S. backup,” he said on Feb. 26. “I believe the Americans have agreed to do that.”
Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Šakalienė also said yesterday that sending European troops to Ukraine to enforce a ceasefire would only be possible with U.S. backing. “We can only talk about a joint decision—U.S. support for European forces, with a clear plan outlining how we would respond, what the mandate would be, and what actions would be taken in the event of a ceasefire violation,” Šakaliene told BNS. “It has to be a joint action. U.S. support should include ensuring that they would respond if Russia violated the ceasefire agreement. As you can see, what that support would look like is still under intense discussion in all formats,” she added.
But the troop deployment won’t be about peacekeeping. “Russia has never honoured any international agreements or treaties before, and hardly anyone expects it to do so now,” Šakalienė claims. (if she’s talking about the Minsk agreements, she certainly has her history backwards—CJO) “If we’re talking about a ceasefire and what can be done to help maintain it, we have to stop using the term ‘peacekeepers’. There’s no peace, and there’s none on the horizon. Russia is advancing, and it doesn’t look like it wants peace,” she added.
In the same article, BNS also reports that the eight Nordic and Baltic countries (NB8) announced this week that they will help develop a Ukrainian brigade. “The Nordic and Baltic countries have agreed to prepare, equip and train a brigade-sized unit. Lithuania, for its part, has worked out a detailed assessment of what equipment and gear ... we could provide and how many instructors we could send,” Šakalienė told BNS. “The full plan is currently being worked out, ... and the figures are something I’d rather not discuss publicly,” she added.
While it’s conceivable that the NB8 countries could equip and train a combat brigade of Ukrainian troops, the spectacular failure of U.S./NATO-led training of the Ukrainian army so far suggests that it would be a meaningless effort.