Media reported on Macron's plan to bring EU troops into Ukraine in 2025

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to introduce EU troops to Ukraine in 2025 with an estimated number of up to 90,000 military personnel, excluding auxiliary personnel. This was reported by the Foreign Policy magazine on December 24.

The publication pointed out that Europe believes that after the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, peace in the republic will have to be kept by UN peacekeepers, but they are unlikely to cope with their mission. Therefore, the EU sees a combined plan: a contingent of UN forces, consisting, for example, of representatives of the Global South, and unification troops will be deployed in Ukraine. At the same time, the European military will be in the country not under the NATO flag, and there will be no U.S. soldiers among the contingent.

Macron is sure that in such a situation the EU will have to provide a reliable force in the form of permanently stationed ground troops in Ukraine. Presumably, this would require at least five brigades - 25,000-30,000 troops. Because of standard rotation practices between training, active deployment and reconstitution of units, this number could reach 75-90 thousand. In addition, it will additionally increase due to support personnel.

The magazine notes that Europe is theoretically capable of such an input of troops, but it is not ready for it because of the poor condition of the armies of the EU countries, so it will take several months.

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Earlier, on December 20, the US newspaper The Washington Post reported that the EU refused to introduce peacekeeping forces to Ukraine under the NATO flag because it would require consensus among the alliance's countries. In addition, Europe realizes that acting on behalf of the bloc would have angered Russia.

Reuters reported on Dec. 18 that European leaders were discussing sending 100,000 military personnel to Ukraine in the event of a cease-fire and the signing of a peace agreement. The next day, on December 19, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (his powers expired on May 20) said that during a meeting with Macron he had discussed Paris's initiative to deploy foreign troops on Ukrainian territory.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on December 16 recalled the prematurity of talks about sending peacekeepers to Ukraine because Kiev is still unwilling to resume negotiations. In her turn, the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, said that EU countries were not discussing such actions.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the background of the aggravated situation in the region.