Ukraine has agreed with its Western partners that persistent Russian violations of any future ceasefire would be met with a co-ordinated military response from Europe and the United States, according to people familiar with the discussions, the Financial Times reports.
The proposal was discussed by Ukrainian, European and American officials on several occasions in December and January. It outlines a multi-tiered reaction to any breach of an agreed armistice by Russia.
Under the plan, a Russian violation would trigger a response within 24 hours, beginning with a diplomatic warning and any necessary action by the Ukrainian army to halt the infraction, three people familiar with the matter said. If hostilities continued, a second phase would be launched involving forces from the so-called coalition of the willing, which includes many European Union member states as well as the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland and Türkiye. Should the violation escalate into a broader attack, a co-ordinated military response involving a Western-backed force and the US military would follow within 72 hours of the initial breach, the officials said.
Discussions on the plan took place in Paris in December and continued in Kyiv on 3 January among national security advisers from coalition countries, according to a person briefed on the talks. They added that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also raised the issue of US support with Donald Trump during a visit to Mar-a-Lago in December. The UK and France have pledged to deploy troops and weapons to Ukraine as part of security guarantees backed by the United States to support a proposed 20-point peace deal aimed at ending Russia’s nearly four-year invasion.
Following the Paris meeting, leaders of Ukraine’s key allies said a European-led deterrence force would provide reassurance measures in the air, at sea and on land after a ceasefire, supported by US intelligence and logistics. Monitoring and enforcement are seen as critical to any ceasefire’s durability. The United States has offered high-tech monitoring along the roughly 1,400-kilometre front line.
The Trump administration has indicated that US security guarantees would be contingent on a peace deal likely involving territorial concessions, including in the eastern Donbas region. Zelenskyy has rejected the idea of a quid pro quo, saying security guarantees should be an act of goodwill.
Russia has dismissed the proposed guarantees and said it would not accept any Western troop deployments to Ukraine or agree to a ceasefire without a comprehensive peace settlement. President Vladimir Putin has said Russian forces are winning on the battlefield and will continue until their objectives are achieved.
In recent weeks, Russian missile and drone strikes have targeted Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, plunging Kyiv into darkness and cutting heating and water supplies for many of its nearly four million residents.
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