Britain Announces New Western Coalition to Deploy Ground Forces to Ukraine
Eastern Europe and Central Asia , Ground
British Prime Minister Kier Starmer on March 2 announced that the United Kingdom and France were ready to lead a “coalition of the willing” to to support the ongoing Ukrainian war effort against Russia, including through deployment of ground forces and aircraft to secure the country’s positions on the frontlines. The announcement followed a visit by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington which was widely assessed to have been disastrous, and to have widened the already significant rift between Washington and European states regarding their positions towards the war. Starmer stressed that it was vital for the European Union to play a greater role in supporting the Ukrainian war effort, emphasising the urgency of the situation. “Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others,” the British leader stated. Alongside France and the United Kingdom, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised the possibility of deployments, stating that Ottawa“has looked at the ways it can best help, and as I’ve said a few days ago, everything’s on the table.”
A report by the Associated Press in mid-February observed that Britain and France remained “at the forefront of the effort” of number of countries in the European Union to prepare contingencies for the deployment of ground forces to Ukraine, and that U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory on November 5 had galvanised European talks on an intervention. French President Emmanuel Macron stated repeatedly in 2024 that ground force deployments remained an option as part of a policy to “do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning this war,” while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in January insisted that European states would need to dispatch 200,000 personnel to his country. “It’s a minimum, otherwise it’s nothing,” he asserted. Calls to consider a large scale ground force intervention have been widely raised by European leaders such as Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, and the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, among others.
The ability of European states to launch an effective intervention remains in question due to their limited ground force capabilities, with one European diplomatic source having informed The Times that U.S. participation would be necessary because “they have capabilities that all of Europe lacks,” including the “ability to retaliate at scale if needed.” Retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former National Security Advisor at the White House H. R. McMaster accordingly on February 7 observed that European armies lacked the necessary capacity to sustain large scale ground operations, noting when taking the United Kingdom as an example: “Look at the British Army right now. I mean, it makes me want to cry, almost.”
In November 2024 the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service disclosed information on plans by NATO members to initiate a major ground force deployment to temporarily suspend ongoing hostilities, with the goal of stemming Ukrainian losses and building up local forces to later resume hostilities on more favourable terms. It noted that as chances for a Ukrainian recovery on the frontlines diminished, European NATO members increasingly supported freezing hostilities to limit the territory Russia could claim, with the the intention to “prepare it for an attempt at revenge.” New training centres had at the time already begun to be set up by NATO members to process at least one million new Ukrainian conscripts, while Ukraine’s strategic partners in the West had pressed Kiev to reduce the conscription age from 25 to 18. “To solve these tasks, the West will need to essentially occupy Ukraine. Naturally, this will be done under the guise of deploying a ‘peacekeeping contingent’ in the country… According to the plan, a total of 100,000 so-called peacekeepers will be deployed in Ukraine,” the agency added, with with Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom expected to play leading roles.
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