According to the website of the Financial Times recently, British Prime Minister Stamer changed his proposal to form and dispatch European ground forces to aid Ukraine at a closed-door meeting led by Britain and France and held in a military base near London, England to "air and maritime support to ensure peace and security after the ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia." Recently, the hot discussions on the formation of a "voluntary alliance" troops to aid Ukraine have begun to show signs of cooling down, including Britain and France.

  Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, European leaders have repeatedly stated that they will send troops to Ukraine in different ways. Especially as Trump joins the 2024 US election and increasingly shows his victory, such discussions have begun to intensively become intensive.

  On November 11, 2024, British Prime Minister Stamer visited France and discussed with French President Macron. Given that Trump is likely to be re-elected as the US president and claimed that he would stop aiding Ukraine, it is necessary for Britain and France to consider forming and leading a "core ally group" to deal with changes, including forming and sending European national forces to support Ukraine. The French Foreign Ministry also revealed that "no choice is ruled out."

  Trump officially took office on January 20 this year and immediately began to fulfill his promise during the campaign to achieve a ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine. However, Trump's efforts to ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine can be regarded as a deviant move. Putting aside the parties involved, Ukraine and Europe, the United States and Russia began bilateral negotiations, which made Ukraine and European countries feel surprised and unacceptable.

  On February 16, British Prime Minister Stamer said in the face of the media that he was ready to deploy British troops to Ukraine if necessary. At the meeting on February 17, Swedish Prime Minister Cristson said that the Swedish army could become part of Ukrainian peacekeeping force. Polish Prime Minister Tusk said that Poland will continue to provide logistical, financial, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine, but has no intention of deploying Polish troops to Ukraine.

  Ukrainian peace is closely linked to European security. At the EU's special summit on March 6, European Commission President von der Leyen announced a "rearming Europe" plan to create a "safe and resilient Europe" to serve as the response of the United States to favor Russia in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and US Vice President Vance beat Europe at the Muan Conference.

  However, there are differences in the EU's internal opinions on the establishment of "European Army" outside the armies of NATO and European countries. The EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Carras, believes that the creation of a "European Army" involves coordination issues between member states, "for now, the security challenges facing the EU should be addressed by strengthening the military forces of member states, rather than establishing the "European Army".

  Obviously, it is not realistic to form a force to aid Ukraine within the EU. Britain and France hope to find another way to achieve their goals by forming a more relaxed and broader "volunteer alliance". On March 11, a military summit initiated by France, including more than 30 countries (excluding the United States) was held in Paris, the capital of France. The meeting discussed the idea of ​​forming an international security force to maintain peace in Ukraine, proposed by Britain and France. On March 15, the UK hosted a "Volunteer Alliance" video conference attended by 29 heads of state or government, and a total of 35 countries signed up to participate. Some participating countries expressed their willingness to join the "Volunteer Alliance" or provided military, logistical and intelligence support to the troops to be formed. However, Italian Prime Minister Meloni made it clear that Italy will not send troops into Ukraine.

  Since considering the formation of the "Volunteer Alliance" and the dispatch of troops into Ukraine, how to form, how large the force is, and what tasks to carry out are the first issues that need to be considered.

  At the "Volunteer Alliance" video conference convened by the UK on March 15, British Prime Minister Stamer proposed the concept of "10,000 peacekeeping force", and some countries also proposed that the approximate size of peacekeeping force is 30,000, and the UK is responsible for providing no less than 10,000 people. The main tasks are defined as "support peace" and "defense against threats."

  Since the European motion originally came from the Trump administration's policy changes in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, its evolution will inevitably be affected by this policy change. Although the Trump administration's overall policy orientation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has not fundamentally changed, Trump's "urgency" to stop the Russian-Ukrainian war overnight has cooled down.

  Trump also seems to have agreed to the fact that he is not as good as he wishes. The intelligence support to Ukraine and the supply of weapons that were cut off and roughly restored, Ukraine not only continued to negotiate mineral resources with the United States, but also echoed Trump's "ask price" and proposed a weapons procurement plan for the United States with a total amount of US$50 billion. Under this circumstance, the urgency of European countries to form a "voluntary alliance" to aid Ukraine forces was obviously reduced.

  European countries had different opinions from the beginning on the motion to form a "voluntary alliance" for Ukraine. It is precisely because the agreement cannot be reached within the EU that Britain and France are forced to change their plans to form a "voluntary alliance". Although dozens of countries often attend the meeting, few promised to send troops.

  On March 27, a "Volunteer Alliance" summit was held in Paris, France, with leaders including Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Turkey and the European Union attended the meeting. French President Macron promised to the participating countries that even if the "Volunteer Alliance" of European countries aid troops will not be deployed to the front line, but will serve as a reserve deterrent force to provide security guarantees to Ukraine.

  More importantly, European countries are unwilling to intensify their confrontation with Russia. The formation of a "voluntary alliance" for the Ukrainian troops was firmly opposed by the Russian side. As early as November 2024, when Britain and France proposed to form a "core ally group" against Russia, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Peskov sarcastically said that this was "hot-headed". Regarding the French-led military summit on March 11 and the British-led video conference on March 15, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the appearance of NATO national troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable. Medvedev, vice-chairman of the Russian Federation Security Conference, warned that if NATO troops enter Ukraine, it would mean a full-scale war.

  European countries are unwilling to intensify their confrontation with Russia, and they are even more unwilling to have direct fire with the Russian army. Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, all European countries have been careful to avoid causing trouble. Not surprisingly, the Paris summit on March 27 did not reach an agreement on sending troops to Ukraine.

  Since 1992, Europe has started to form an integrated defense force "European Legion", which is independent of the United States, but nothing has been achieved so far. Regarding the motion of Britain and France to form a "voluntary alliance" for Ukraine to aid troops, senior Ukraine government officials mocked Britain and France for "just doing it". If Europe wants to gain respect in strategic and defense autonomy, it still needs to take more powerful measures and achieve practical results.

  (Wu Minwen, author's unit: School of Information and Communication, National University of Defense Technology)

[Editor in charge: Wang Jinzhi]