Timing is everything. After the Coalition of the Willing came together in Paris and vowed to provide Ukraine with security guarantees “the day the conflict stops”, Russian President Vladimir Putin immediately threw a spanner in the works, stating that Moscow would regard any Western troops deployed as “legitimate targets for strikes”.
While the Coalition may have seemed united at Thursday’s meeting, Putin will know that such ominous words will only exacerbate existing divisions inside the EU. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for example, is opposed to putting Western peacekeepers in Ukraine for exactly this reason, fearing that any attacks on them by Russian forces would require a Nato Article 5 collective response and so spark a wider conflict. Germany is also reluctant about sending its soldiers, while the UK and France’s enthusiasm is gung-ho verging on delusional.
