Western Security Guarantees Could Include "Building A Stronger Ukrainian Military"
3 min read
Western leaders could help Ukraine expand its army as part of security guarantees for the country in the event of a peace deal, military experts have told PoliticsHome.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday praised the "real sense of unity" among Western allies as they try to bring an end to fighting in the region.
Starmer was part of a group of Western leaders who met with Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on Monday for talks about the war in Ukraine. It followed the US President's in-person meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week.
Details of potential security guarantees for Ukraine are under discussion.
On Wednesday, military chiefs representing European 'Coalition of the Willing' nations, including the UK's Sir Tony Radakin, will meet with US counterparts in Washington to discuss how they could collectively protect Ukraine from future Russian aggression.
Trump suggested on Tuesday that the US would be willing to contribute to the future protection of Ukraine through air support, "because nobody has the kind of stuff we have".
John Spencer, a former US Army officer who now serves as Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum, said the UK and its allies could pledge to help grow Ukraine's army as part of security guarantees for Kyiv.
He told PoliticsHome that Ukraine had impressively scaled up its military from hundreds of thousands to one million troops since Russia's illegal invasion in 2022.
Spencer said that if is peace deal is brokered between Ukraine and Russia, Western powers could help Ukraine bolster its armed forces to deter another attack, because "President Trump doesn’t want a ceasefire to stay for two years and war to break out again".
"A security guarantee could include building a stronger Ukrainian military," he said.
It remains to be seen whether a peace agreement can be reached, with reports in recent days suggesting that Putin wants parts of eastern Ukraine before signing any deal.
Trump has said he has already started making arrangements for a Zelensky-Putin meeting — in what would be their first in-person meeting in six years — and that there could be a subsequent "trilateral" meeting involving himself, Zelensky, and Putin.
Natia Seskuria, an associate fellow at The Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, warned that Putin wants to take the whole Donbas region of Ukraine and is "not bothered about losing troops".
“Russia needs time to rebuild," she told PoliticsHome, arguing that the Russian President's true aim is not peace in Ukraine, but to persuade Trump to remove economic sanctions from Russia, which in turn would help fund his war machine in the long haul.
“He [Putin] thinks if he can get something out of peace talks, at least he can convince Trump that Ukrainians are the problem...
"The economic factors are important because they are trying hard to get sanctions relief."
