The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that a meeting of military commanders with a group of countries willing to support the deployment of a military contingent in Ukraine will take place on April 4.
This is reported by Kyiv24
At a press conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Kyiv on April 1, Zelensky expressed hope for more concrete responses from allies regarding their readiness to join such forces aimed at countering Russia.
The President clarified that representatives from France, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine will participate in the negotiations. The day before, he reported that following a conversation with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the parties plan to meet “military representatives to prepare contingents.”
Preparation for the Meeting of Military Commands
Starmer’s office confirmed that the meeting of military leadership from the United Kingdom, France, and Ukraine will take place in the coming days. Recently, France and Britain have held a series of summits with European leaders in Paris and London, as well as gathered chiefs of defense from various countries to determine what security guarantees can be provided and what the future foreign military contingent in Ukraine will look like.
Concept of the Future Contingent
After the summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized that the new contingent, which will serve as an additional element of security for Ukraine alongside the Armed Forces, will not perform peacekeeping functions. These will be forces de réassurances, which translates from French as “forces for strengthening confidence” or “assurance forces,” which are sometimes referred to as “deterrence forces” in Ukrainian media. By rejecting the term “peacekeepers,” the countries forming the mission can avoid the limitations associated with this concept.
NATO diplomats who expressed their views in comments noted that one of the advantages of the new approach is the ability to operate the contingent without obtaining Russia’s consent.