Macron to visit Poland to discuss European peacekeeping mission project in Ukraine — Rzeczpospolita

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Poland to discuss with the country's leadership a plan for a European peacekeeping mission to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty in the event that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is able to reach an agreement with russian dictator vladimir putin.

Former NATO Assistant Secretary General Camille Grand said this in a comment to the Polish publication Rzeczpospolita.

Last Saturday, December 7, in Paris before the opening ceremony of Notre Dame de Paris, Macron met with Trump. They spoke for about an hour. After that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined them, and the conversation lasted for about half an hour.

"As far as I understand, Emmanuel Macron conveyed to Donald Trump that Europe not only cannot remain on the sidelines of the negotiations between the U.S. and Russia <...> but is also ready to participate in this process," Grand said in a comment to Rzeczpospolita.

He added that Macron allegedly told Trump that Europe is interested in the negotiations because it has its own serious security interests.

According to him, Macron also told the U.S. President-elect that European countries are allegedly ready to participate in this process not only financially, but also to take on the risk of protecting Ukraine's sovereignty.

Rzeczpospolita writes that the essence of Macron's proposal may be to send a peacekeeping mission to the territory of Ukraine, which would guarantee that moscow would not violate a possible ceasefire.

Macron first put forward the idea of ​​sending foreign troops to Ukraine in February 2024. However, he did not specify under what conditions this could happen.

He spoke about this in more detail on November 11 during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. And on November 27, Macron convened the leaders of the Nordic and Baltic countries, where the idea of ​​sending a peacekeeping mission was also discussed.

Élie Tenenbaum, an expert at the Paris-based IFRI Institute, who is working on the project for such a mission, told Rzeczpospolita that the peacekeeping contingent could consist of five brigades with a total of 40,000 troops. Poland could take command of one of them.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on December 9, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy allowed the presence of foreign troops to guarantee Ukraine's security until it joins NATO.

Recall that on November 25, the French edition of Le Monde reported, citing sources, that France and the United Kingdom had resumed discussions on sending troops to Ukraine.

We also reported that in October 2024, French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu stated that Western countries should begin discussing the deployment of troops in Ukraine after Kyiv and moscow reach a ceasefire agreement.