European leaders and US officials during a press conference after the signing of the trilateral letter of intent for British and French forces to commit their own forces to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia. Credit: Office of the President of Ukraine.
  • The president of Ukraine’s office suggested that the presence of Coalition forces in Ukraine in the event of a future peace deal with Russia would go beyond putting boots on the ground
  • It would also commit British and French forces to provide aerial and naval capabilities in the country
  • Military officials from all three nations worked in detail on deployment, numbers, specific types of weapons, and components required to operate effectively

The office of the Ukrainian President stated that British and French forces could secure the war-torn nation “on land, in the air, and at sea” in the event of a future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in a statement yesterday (6 January).

This assertion came just after the signing of a declaration of intent among the three nations in Paris, France, where the two Western leaders pledged military security guarantees in the event of any future peace deal as Europe aim to support the country in the long term.

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‘At the moment when diplomacy succeeds in bringing the war to an end we will have full readiness to deploy Coalition forces’, guaranteed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On the same page?

The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was more elusive in his description of British and French military presence in his speech, alluding to the construction of ‘military hubs’ for the storage of weapons and military equipment to support Ukraine’s defence needs. To what extent Western personnel would directly engage with Russian forces, if pressed, remains unknown.

Although Zelenskyy assured that military officials from among all three nations worked in detail on deployment, numbers, specific types of weapons, and components required to operate effectively.

It is understood that the British government expects this Multinational Force for Ukraine to conduct reassurance operations in the air, on land and at sea.

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Though Zelenskyy alluded to discussions about certain military particulars, a more precise doctrine is still required to determine desired outcomes, namely to keep Russia in check and to deter the Putin regime from violating any terms.

Is the UK ready for conflict?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have raised the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine throughout the past year already. The Paris agreement, however, marks their first effort to organise a working model for what this would potentially look like.

Previously, Army Technology assessed the likelihood that, given the UK’s limited military capacity all-round, which makes its forces far from ready to engage in the high intensity warfare playing out in Eastern Europe, a realistic model could be their Kosovo peacekeeping structure. Also known as KFOR, this mission comprised several thousand British personnel when they first deployed in 1999.

It should be noted that a UK peacekeeping force, as with all the likely European contributions, would be a tripwire, and not intended to engage with Russian aggression in a direct sense. This taps into the difficulty of formulating a working doctrine, given that Russian strategy against Nato has been to prod the alliance before entering the threshold of direct conventional conflict.

Europe has witnessed this time and again throughout 2025, with Russian Foxhound jets flying over Estonia airspace for an unprecedented 12 minutes to deploying one-way attack drones inside Poland. These events stirred Europe into debate about responding directly. This would not be any different in Ukraine.

Nevertheless, any military presence in Ukraine will seriously stretch and detract from the UK’s existing capabilities while its own immediate strategic interests are emerging in the North Atlantic and High North region.

It is difficult to deliver when the UK Defence Committee are pushed into the mentality that “in a war of existence, a platform which is even halfway viable for regeneration is better than none at all”.

Additional reporting from Richard Thomas.