at least 200,000 European troops are needed to guarantee peace, says Volodymyr Zelensky

This is the first time that a senior Ukrainian official has publicly mentioned the number of such a contingent, although this project has been discussed behind the scenes for several months between kyiv and its Western allies.

President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated that at least 200,000 European troops should be deployed to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the event of a truce with Russia and avoid a new invasion, according to a video released by kyiv on Wednesday January 22. “200,000 is a minimum. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing”declared the Ukrainian president on Tuesday during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), in an interview shared on the presidency’s website the next day.

This is the first time that a senior Ukrainian official has publicly mentioned the number of such a contingent, although this project has been discussed behind the scenes for several months between kyiv and its Western allies. Emmanuel Macron had put forward the idea of ​​stationing Western troops in Ukraine to supervise a possible ceasefire agreement with Russia, which launched the invasion of its Ukrainian neighbor three years ago and today occupies about 20% of its territories in the East and South.

For weeks, speculation about possible talks to end the conflict has been increasing, against a backdrop of questions about the position that the new American president Donald Trump will adopt, while the United States is the main provider of aid military and financial in kyiv.