Detailed planning for a possible peace maintenance mission of the “voluntary coalition” to Ukraine will begin this week among Western military commanders, says the Canadian general in charge of foreign and national operations.
The notion of a peace maintenance force is being fulfilled internationally with skepticism as Ukraine and Russia meet indirectly to mark a high limited fire.
Lieutenant General. Steve Boivin suggested that Canada would stretch to contribute, but it is possible if the troops that train the Ukrainian forces become reused for the maintenance of peace.
He told CBC News that a preliminary meeting of military commanders of 28 nations that have expressed the willingness to contribute to force, which will be deployed in the case of Alto El Fuego, was held last week in the United Kingdom.
Boivin participated in the discussions.
Indirect negotiations for fire between Russia and Ukraine began on Monday in Saudi Arabia, an effort mediated by the United States. The two countries have in principle agreed on a one -month stop over the strikes about the energy infrastructure after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, but there is uncertainty about how it will enter into force.
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, several weeks ago proposed a peace force composed of several NATO countries, including Canada.
At the beginning of March, before the Federal Call of Elections on Sunday, Defense Minister Bill Blair said that Canada was “ready and capable of contributing to the troops if there was a high fire.
“I will emphasize that we do not know what the conditions of such a fire could be. Therefore, we are working with a series of assumptions and developing contingency plans,” said Boivin. “The general objective is to offer options to decision makers.”
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, last weekend dismissed Starmer’s peace maintenance plan as “Posture and Pose”.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he intends to end the war in Ukraine, but exactly how that could develop is in debate. Andrew Chang breaks down what Russia, Ukraine and the United States want a resolution, and how conflicting interests make their objectives incompatible. Images provided by Getty Images, Reuters and The Canadian Press.
At the same time, several media from the United Kingdom reported on Monday that the main British military commanders, cited anonymously, say that the prime minister has left in front of himself. They said that detailed planning will not be completed before April 20: the deadline of the White House for a high fire.
It is evident that it will be a fight for Canada to contribute.
Canada is in the middle of an election and if the new government agrees to deploy the forces of peace, it faces reality there are not many Canadian troops for all.
The army has been struggling to fill the ranks after the Covid-19 pandemic and a crisis of inappropriate sexual behavior that affected a number of major commanders.
There are up to 400 Canadian troops involved in the training of Ukrainian forces and Boivin said that one of the options under consideration for its headquarters is to “replace” some, or all, of them for a peace maintenance mission.
“The guide that gave my team is: let’s start with what we already have on the ground,” said Boivin, referring to troops deployed abroad.
The training of Ukrainian soldiers (basic recruits, doctors and tanks, among others, was a point of marquee conversation for the liberal government, since it underlined its support for the country in conflict. More than 32,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained under Operation Unifier and its continuation has often been a great question by the Zelenskyy government.
Boivin said that one of the reasons why training troops may need to be reused is because the army is completely committed to its commitment to build and lead a NATO brigade in Latvia.
“We are not going to affect our contribution in Latvia,” Boivin said. “We have committed ourselves to NATO.”
He said that allied military planners have begun to look at the size and composition of the potential strength of peace maintenance, and how armed it would have to be.
That is a legitimate concern given the estimates of allied intelligence that show that there are around 700,000 Russian troops in Ukraine and its surroundings, and the Ukrainian army has more than one million soldiers under arms.
The necessary strength size could be massive
In a recent analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies based in Washington, Benjamin Jensen wrote that given the front line of approximately 2,100 kilometers long, the size of the peace maintenance force would be potentially massive.
“The security force required to really safeguard peace in Ukraine could be as great as the entire Army of Greece or Spain,” Jensen wrote, a main member of the group of experts, in an online comment on February 25.
“In other words, the maintenance of peace in Ukraine has the potential to eclipse previous Missions of NATO in the Balkans in its size and complexity.”
It could vary, he estimated, from anywhere among a few thousand soldiers to 100,000, a force that would also have to be heavily armed and backed.
“To guarantee security, this force should not only act as a deterrent but also to have the ability to fight war to counteract the Russian potential fait accompli Attacks along the border, “Jensen wrote.
“And this force will require additional air, naval and spatial assets to cover the air and sea corridors that Russia could use to launch a future preventive attack.”
Anthony King, professor at the Institute of Strategy and Security at the University of Exeter, suggested that the underlying assumption has always been that any peacekeeping force in Ukraine would need the support of the United States.
“It seems likely that European nations, as a coalition, could put together a credible force, and that could generate enough good will in the White House for the president to provide additional support,” King said in a statement on conversations in Saudi Arabia.
“American infrastructure support would at least be essential, so the peace maintenance force could make use of the impressive air defense systems of the United States. This would be essential to ensure the security of Ukraine in the future.”
