The enthusiasm of some coalitioners seems to disappear. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and probably also the British premier only want to participate virtually in the meeting.
Nevertheless, NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte was optimistic. He soon expects an agreement on a concept for security guarantees for Ukraine. It should be expected that “tomorrow or soon after tomorrow there will be clarity about what we can do together, he said on the previous day of the consultations. That means that we can exchange ideas with the American side even more intensively,” said Rutte after a meeting with Estonia’s President Alar Karis in Brussels. Accordingly, the Europeans together with other countries are in the process of clarifying the last details at the level of military chiefs, minister of defense and heads of state and government.
Karis confirmed that Estonia was willing to provide soldiers for a possible European peace force. “We continue to participate in this planning,” he said.
Whether there is a peace solution at all remains open. At a press conference in China Selenskyj, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin asked Moscow to talk to him – but only when everything was negotiated at the lower level. At the same time, he refrained from legitimacy. Kyiv rejected the demand for a meeting in the Russian capital as “unacceptable from the outset”.
With regard to the negotiations, the Kremlin chief also gave himself hard. Russia is ready to continue waging war if an agreement is not agreed that is approved by Moscow, he said. He showed himself to win. The Russian troops would successfully advance along the entire front, but the Ukrainian troops were exhausted, he repeated his thesis of the soon -to -be collapse of the opponent.
Security expert Ed Arnold from the British thinking factory Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) emphasizes the political importance of the coalition of the willing, but doubts whether the intended deterrent effect of a military operation will develop. In the worst case, he warns that a stationing of European NATO troops can lead to the NATO’s assistant clause exposing as hollow.
“Will the Americans attack a Russian goal because three French soldiers are killed in an incident that the Russians probably represent as an oversight? I just don’t believe that,” said Arnold of the German Press Agency in London. Then Putin could take advantage of the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine to demonstrate that the existing clause of Article 5 of the NATO contract is less resilient than previously assumed.
Germany had last slowed down on the topic. Long -term security guarantees can only be decided if there is a ceasefire or a peace agreement, said Chancellor Merz in the previous week. On the question of a possible postponement of soil troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire, he said that there were no such concrete plans for military use in Germany.
