Kiev: UK Chief of the Defence Staff Tony Radakin discussed in Kiev the possible deployment of "peacekeepers" to Ukraine with his French and Ukrainian counterparts, the UK Defence Ministry said. "As part of the UK's leading efforts to build a Coalition of the Willing to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine, the Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin met with Ukrainian and French counterparts in Kyiv," the ministry said. "The Defence Chiefs addressed the structure, size and composition required of any future reassurance force in Ukraine."

According to Namibia Press Agency, the statement does not name the representatives of France and Ukraine who took part in the meeting with Radakin. Following the Paris summit of the "Coalition of the Willing" on March 27, French President Emmanuel Macron said that a number of coalition representatives were planning to send "deterrent forces" to Ukraine. As the French leader emphasized, this Franco-British initiative will not replace Ukrainian troops, and the "deterrent forces" will not be peacekeepers. Their goal will be to contain Russia, and they will be deployed in strategic locations pre-determined with the Ukrainians. Macron noted that not everyone agreed with the initiative, but this is not necessary for its implementation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized on March 6 that Russia did not see any room for compromise on the issue of deploying foreign peacekeepers in Ukraine. As the Russian minister specified, if a foreign contingent is deployed in Ukraine, Western countries will not want to agree on the terms of a peaceful settlement, since this contingent will create "facts on the ground." The Russian Foreign Ministry previously stated that the plans of some EU countries to send "peacekeepers" to Ukraine were a provocative step aimed at maintaining unhealthy illusions among the authorities in Kiev.

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) previously said that the West would deploy a so-called peacekeeping contingent of about 100,000 people in the country to restore Ukraine's combat capability. The SVR believes that this would be a de facto occupation of Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the deployment of peacekeepers was possible only with the consent of the parties to a particular conflict. According to Peskov, it is premature to talk about peacekeepers in Ukraine.