Western officials say possible Anglo-French force would also not rely on US systems or technology such as Starlink

British troops and their European allies would be allowed to fire back if attacked by Russians when potentially stationed as peacekeepers in Ukraine after a ceasefire, western officials said.

The Anglo-French led stabilisation force would also not rely on US systems or technology, such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, and is expected to be almost exclusively European if deployed.

“Clearly we will protect our forces against any aggression,” an official familiar with the plans said, though they emphasised that western troops in Ukraine would engage in a manner that was “defensive in nature”.

Details emerged as the UK and France set out Exercise Koalicja, which will take place later this month in Poland. It is an 11-country rehearsal of how European militaries could deploy rapidly to Ukraine if the war comes to an end.

    • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Why would Russia agree to this when the entire purpose of the conflict is to keep NATO out of Ukraine after the 2014 coup?

      NATO has been arming Ukraine as a proxy this entire time. They’re not a third party in any sense.

      It’s going to be Turkey or some other second rate power.

      • StillAlive@piefed.world
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        45 minutes ago

        .ml spotted, block initiated

        🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

      • Lucius_Sweet@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        You obviously have not been paying attention to the war in Ukraine the last year or so. Russia is having a bad time out there, there is no way to dress up Russia’s awful performance on the battlefield over the last 18 months. The conflict has been at a stalemate for the last 3 years or so with neither country able to make decisive gains on the battlefield.

        Russia has been financing the war using a sovereign wealth fund that amounted to around 300 billion dollars before the war and a similar amount of debt in preferential loans to the MIC. This wealth fund is now dry and the debt burden at high interest rates are seeing increasing rates of default. Russia’s only real source of income is from selling oil and gas which has gotten a lot harder with all of the sanctions and secondary sanctions leveled against the country. Ukraine has been damaging the large oil refineries at increasing frequency harming Russia’s ability to produce the oil it desperately needs to sell.

        This war has been incredibly expensive for Russia, if we add up the 300 billion sovereign wealth fund, the 300billion in bank debt to the 300 billion confiscated by the west to the budgetary spending we are at well over a trillion dollars. Using Mediazonas conservative estimate of confirmed Russian deaths on the front line we are now at 282,993 dead Russian soldiers, of which 7,920 are officers, this has been a massive waste of time and money to take control over slightly more of Ukraine than Russia already had control of at the beginning of 2022.

        In short, winners dictate the terms of victory and it would be laughable to suggest that what Russia is currently doing in Ukraine resembles anything close to winning. Russia should take what it can get as soon as possible because as Russia’s economy continues its slide down the toilet there is no guarantee that the terms offered in a years time or two will be anywhere near as good as they are being offered at present. I have been following the war since the very beginning and have seen Russia’s ability on the battlefield decline sharply over the last few years. They currently have no conceivable path to victory, I don’t even know what victory at this stage would look like for them.

        • LocalAreaMan@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          Seeing your wall of TL;DR neoliberal text makes me cringe.

          Are you really trying to depress Russia into surrendering? Seriously? Good luck with that.

          The reason we are in a proxy war with Russia is the same reason you don’t need to worry about them.

          I’m sure they appreciate your concern, however.

          How’s the West’s imperialist stranglehold on a unipolar world order going?

          checks notes… 😬

          • ManixT@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            You love busting out that loser chart, don’t you? How’s russia doing with all those resources? Making good progress?

  • panthera_@lemmy.today
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    12 hours ago

    As the article said, this is completely hypothetical. This is concrete. Europe should propose this to Putin. Russia will withdraw from all land it seized from Ukraine after the 2022 invasion. NATO would be dissolved and replaced with a European alliance. Ukraine and Canada would be permitted to join but not the US. All sanctions against Russia will be lifted. Russia will not be required to pay reparations. If Putin doesn’t accept the proposal, the UK and France would send troops to Ukraine.