Richard Sanders, Staff Writer
US President-elect Donald Trump has proposed that EU members send peacekeepers to Ukraine to monitor a ceasefire with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Trump ran for the White House on the promise of negotiating a swift end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but has been reluctant to reveal any specifics of his actual proposal since winning the election.
Speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Saturday, Trump argued that “Europe” should play the main role in monitoring a ceasefire and that no US troops would be involved, the Journal reported, citing “officials briefed on the meeting.”
The Journal’s sources claimed that the proposal “started as quiet discussions between British and French officials about the possibility” before including Trump, Zelensky and other governments.
According to one source, Trump also pushed the EU to demand of China to pressure Russia to end the conflict, suggesting the use of tariffs as leverage.
Discussions are still at such an early stage, according to the Journal, that the questions of which countries would be involved, with how many troops, and any US role in supporting the mission remain unresolved.
The hypothetical peacekeeping or monitoring mission in Ukraine would not be under NATO command but would involve troops from member countries of the US-led bloc, according to the unnamed officials, who admitted this was something they were not sure Russia would accept.
It was likewise unclear whether Washington’s European allies would be able to spare the actual soldiers or have the political support at home for such a mission.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has invited the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland to meet with Zelensky in Brussels to discuss security guarantees for Kiev, two officials told the Journal.
According to unnamed aides, however, Trump is not “wedded” to any particular plan for ending the conflict and “hasn’t thought deeply about the issue” as he prepares the handover of power on January 20.
Russia has repeatedly said that Ukraine’s association with NATO would be a threat to its national security. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has described Ukraine’s membership in the bloc as “categorically unacceptable” to Moscow, citing it as one of the major causes of the current conflict.