Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has warned that Ukraine cannot be guaranteed protection from future Russian aggression unless European nations deploy troops on Ukrainian soil.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight on 19 August, the former Danish Prime Minister said the coming weeks would be decisive.
“The next two weeks will be decisive when it comes to building a European coalition of the willing to deploy troops to Ukraine. Let’s face it, there will be no ironclad security guarantees, there’ll be no guarantee against a future Russian attack on Ukraine without European troops deployed on Ukrainian soil. And that should be decided within the next two weeks,” Rasmussen told presenter Paddy O’Connell.
Reflecting on Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which occurred during his time as NATO Secretary General, Rasmussen admitted regret over the West’s reaction. “NATO and the international community reacted too hesitantly, too mildly … I think we should have reacted militarily already back in 2014/15 to send a very clear message to Putin.”
He also said Western leaders had long underestimated Vladimir Putin, arguing that the Russian leader’s KGB background shaped his outlook and methods. “I believe that Putin has all the way through been the same. He grew up in KGB. He is an educated and very skilled KGB agent, and he still behaves like a KGB agent.”
Rasmussen emphasised the need for Europeans to change their mindset towards defence after what he described as harvesting the “peace dividend” too quickly. “We have to make sure that we have a will to defend our societies. We harvested the peace dividend too quickly. Obviously, we want to invest in hospitals, in elderly care, in childcare, in education, and that’s a better way of spending our money. But we have to realise that all those elements in our welfare state are worth nothing if we are not able to defend ourselves.”
He also insisted that while American support would remain vital, Europeans should take the lead in providing security guarantees to Ukraine. “We can deliver concrete and iron-clad security guarantees without American boots on the ground, but with an American backup. So I would expect the Europeans to deliver the bulk of the security guarantees to Ukraine backed up by American help.”
The comments come in the immediate aftermath of the Trump-Putin summit, which has raised questions across Europe about the future of security commitments to Kyiv.
The full BBC Newsnight programme is available on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds. Clips are also posted on X.
Crimea 2014, Rasmussan admitted regret not sending military to intervene.
Hmmm, maybe a “Light Brigade” ?
“Me Sir ?, You Sir”.
That is about the sum total of Britain’s armoured might today: six hundred lionhearted light cavalrymen!
Question, why do you think Russia is fighting this SMO?
Demographic imperialist colonialism
Ulya, Putin bemoaned the disintegration of the USSR so now dreams of creating ‘greater Russia’ instead. That is my ‘take’ on it. His claim of Ukrainian fascism is ridiculous and must be very galling to Zelensky as he is Jewish. It is Putin who ‘role plays’ being a Fascist like Hitler.
One aspect of this possible commitment could be the retention of Warrior and Bulldog beyound their planned retirement dates. CH2 could remain beyond 2030, as CH3 will not be established in strength before 2030. The possibility of UK forces being deployed in Ukraine for at least ten years is not an exaggeration, considering other regional deployments, such as those in Cyprus. This will require a maximum effort by all personnel. Sadly, the Army is in transition with brand new fighting vehicles on stream, but not fast enough to make any immediate difference. So, battle on Mastif, Warrior, Bulldog, and CH2.
Maurice, The FOC for CR3 is late in 2030 ie they will be fully in-service. Why would you want to have a smallish number of residual CR2 retained in service ‘beyond 2030’? Anyway, its not what we do.
Graham, my comment is based on the unlikely deployment of the British Army in Ukraine as part of the joint multinational peace effort. That would require many current armoured vehicles, hence the likelihood of CH2 being retained longer than planned. Like all military programmes, the chances of CH3 being fully established by 2030 is questionable, plus the fact that troops on the ground in Ukraine wasn,t part of the plans when CH2’s future was being planned. The same applies to Warrior and Bulldog.
Maurice, thanks. Russia seems to now have accepted European ‘peacekeepers’ on the ground in Ukraine, so I am not sure that BA deployment is unlikely, except if there is no ceasefire or peace deal and then they would not be sent of course. But the BA role would not to be Infantry-centric. It is the provision of logisticians and trainers. So not sure that a huge number of MBTs and IFVs would be required. More likely would be PM vehicles for the loggies and trainers. Force Protection of those guys might be done by the French or whoever.
I would be surprised if CR3 FOC was delayed beyond late 2030 – they are operating under a relaxed timeline as it is.
Graham, there appears to be some difference of opinion in the media as some experts are predicting an armoured division, if not more, as Britain and France will be taking the lion’s share of the leadership of any peacekeeping. However, there is a growing opinion that Putin only nodded at the possibility of ground troops, but some believe he won’t win over the Kremlin and will ultimately say no.
Nobody is going to want to send a full sized ground force to guarantee a peace, holding apart over a million armed troops. The only sustainable guarantee for Ukraine is for the war to be won, or for Russia to get bored and go home, perhaps after the death of Putin.
Let’s make what’s to me an obvious assumption: that Putin wants to continue the war, and that he’ll waste as much time as possible in negotiations while he creates an increasing footprint in Ukraine. Britain shouldn’t be concentrating on leading an impossible initiative to sustain a peace that doesn’t exist and that neither side wants. The war goes on and we should look to support Ukraine the best we can as long as Ukraine wants to fight.
Leave Trump do his thing to sort a cease fire if he can.
They would not be peace keeping troops in the UN sense of the word, they would not be between the Ukrainian and Russian troops, if European troops went into Ukraine it would essentially be as allies to the Ukrainian army and facing off against Russian forces. Not your trade peace keeps, essentially more in line with what NATO forces do in the Baltic states.
Agreed. If Trump wants to force a ceasefire, his troops should be the ones enforcing it.
Typical freeloader Trump. Wants to have his cake and have NATO pay for it too.
Yep any security guarantee to Ukraine should be a NATO lead guarantee that includes US resources. Individual European nations providing a guarantee outside of NATO is a shite feste waiting to happen.
The road the US is going down is not a pleasant one for anyone and I personally believe is critically damaging the future of western power and more specifically US hegemony.. essentially what Tump is doing is a derogation of Budapest amendment, completely destroying any trust in US backed international agreements as well as selling his European allies down the river.
He has essentially destroyed US soft power as well as any trust from its allies.. strengthened the junior partner of his primary enemy and cripple Europe from being able to effectively participate in wider geostrategic events ( as it will need to focus on Ukraine) essentially he has done exactly what Xia Jinping wants..and made the ending of US dominance just a bit more likely.
NATO was created for European security, not US security. Yet Ukraine is another shining example of European incompetence, dithering and unable to support an ally on its front porch in a limited war, while the US provides most of the deciding factor weapons and intel (HIMARs, Javelins, SAT SIGINT, ELINT intel) from 10000km away. Its Europe that is killing nato’s credibility, not the USA.
Sorry that’s just not what the historic record tells us, you are making some counter history there.
NATO was born not in Europe but as part of the Truman Doctrine when the Truman government decided that the worldwide communist movement as represented by the USSR was an existential threat to both US power and in the end the US itself and that to defend itself from this the US would engage in one of the largest political warfare campaigns ever seen, the containment of communism. From the Truman doctrine came the US engaged two core European components the Marshal plan, to repair the shattered European economies to prevent them from flipping to communism ( which they all could have done if left in the state they were. Then in 48 the upper house passed the Vandenburg Resolution, which allowed the US to intervene in the spread of communism ( beginning its 80 years of invading, intervention, proxy wars across the globe as it engaged in a political war with the USSR, around 130 is the number of nations ). NATO actually started when in 1948 the US invited the UK abd Canada to secrete talks in the pentagon around a mutual defence agreement to contain the USSR this became more intense as Czechoslovak moved to communism. The US was the most power-full party in those discussions and essentially set the terms it wanted signing the treaty on the 4 April 49 and signed the instrument of accession along with 11 other nations. But the driving force was always the US and UK with the US being the driving partner. It’s why many of the articles cannot function without the US and specifically require Washington to understand actions and it’s Washington that holds and controls the instruments of accession and instruments of ratification as well as any notice of denunciations. This control was purposely placed and insisted on by the US as part of its design of NATO. I don’t know why but the American right seen to try and reject the history of the US as the hegemonic power of the last 80 years I find it staggering that the American right chooses to deny its own nations part and control of history.. is as bonkers to my mind as the left in the UK trying to demonise its own imperial history. The US ruled the world from 1945 it made the decisions what we have today is by its design it should be proud and own it, not go down a whinging rabbit hole of blame the Europeans.
As for the political weakness of NATO sorry but again that was born in the US, infact it was a democrat president who essentially created NATO and secured US hegemony and its defeat of Russian global communism and a latter Democratic president in Bill Clinton who sowed the seeds of the destruction of US hegemonic power, because Bill Clinton in 1993 sucked in the cool aid of Fancis Fukuyama and his writings on the end of history and the last man.. this essentially stated the US and Liberal democracies had won and the world would now naturally become one big set of free trading open liberal democracies… that view infected the US and European governments mindset from the mid 1990s and even now is causing an issue ( most people still against all physical evidence refuse to believe that China is infact planning and will go to war with the US). This mindset has taken us where we are.. the free trade element has fuelled nationalism and separatist movements as it destroyed the industrial bases in the west and shifted them to China and India, and the belief liberal democracies will always win our in the end because we are “better” elements lead to the US and Europe backing away from direct conflict with peers on the “ they will come around “ theory.
In regards to Ukraine, it was not Europe or US weakness, it was Western weakness.. by separating and blaming we inflame the problem.. an isolated European will become utterly focused on Russia and the US is not in a position to win a war with the predator that is coming for it without being completely shattered ( personally I thing if the US is isolated from Europe it will loss against china in the mid term ) .
Elint has consistently been provided by the UK, unlike American Elint that gets withdrawn on a wim by TACO.
NLAW and Jav where both provided in large numbers (along with the training to use them by the UK), Panzerfaust 3, Carl G, Directed Roadside AT mines all provided by Europe too.
MARS and M240 launchers provided by Europe.
Marder, M113, Panzerhbz 2000, 432, YPR 765, Caesar, all provided in quantity by Europe.
Challenger: Provided ages before America offered a single AFV.
Leopard 1 and 2: Provided by Europe in quantities vastly exceeding the M1 deliveries.
Boxer 155 being produced by Rheinmetall specifiically for Ukraine.
45.6% of financial support for Ukraine has come from the EU (so not including Norway and the UK)
37.2% has come from the US
Eastern Europe lead the way, donating T series tanks and BMP’s in quantities the US has never matched with M1s and Bradleys from day 1 of the war.
Europe has delivered NASAMS, SAMP-T, IRIS and Patriot systems in quantity.
Storm Shadow delivered by Britain and France, what equivalent system has the US donated?
And just how many Fighter Jet’s has the combined 1st and 2nd Largest Airforce in the world delivered to Ukraine? Slovakia on it’s own has delivered 15 Mig-29’s, Europe has baisically donated enough F-16s to completely rebuild the Ukrainian Air Force, so the US donations of Aircraft must be huge right?
Oh… it’s zero.
Oh and BTW: the US delivered 20 HIMARS systems to Ukraine. Europe Delivered 24 M270s+HIMARS.
So no. It’s not like Europe has done nothing and the US has done all the heavy lifting. In fact in general the US has dragged it’s feet with Aid.
Chris, what do you mean about European dithering? The UK started to train the Ukrainian army in Dec 2014/Jan 2015…and continues to do this to this day. Britain was the first to fund and agree to set up F-16 training to kickstart supply of F-16s (even though UK does not operate this aircraft). Britain was the first to supply AT weapons, which were delivered in the thousands before Russia even crossed the border in Feb 2022. Britain was the first to offer tanks. Germany and other European nations delivered tanks about 6 months before the US did. The US were shamed very belatedly into offering tanks and then took 8 or 9 months to deliver them hobbling the planned Ukrainian counter-offensive. US delayed on delivering HIMARS.
US has stopped shipments for silly political reasons – that’s not the mark of a mature and reliable ally. Whereas Europe has gifted much of the military equipment and munitions especially in the early period, yet the Americans have sold equipment for profit. The Americans latest wheeze is to sell kit to the Europeans who then pass it onto Ukraine – not very generous of the US and proof that they like to make large profits put of helping friendly nations locked into a horrendous war.
Finally Europe has delivered more military aid than the US by value. The US has underperformed.
Thank goodness we didn’t do anything silly, like make 20% of the Army redundant.
That would have been a fucking stupid move, that any idiot would have realised was going to bite you on the arse.
I think BobA may have been sarcastic there.
As in, we did.
So was I 😂
Sorry! Lol.
BobA, just 20%? The Regular Army was 160,000 regs in 1990 and is now established for 73,000.
If this works and it’s big if Trump will have played a bit of a blinder, by positioning the USA as friend to Russia and hostile to Europe suddenly a US security guarantee is seen as more of a neutral act that say the Biden administration or NATO guaranteeing Ukraine which would have been seen as actively hostile,
Crediting to starmer as well by setting up the UK and France to lead the ground campaign it can be credible enough (with US AirPower) but not perceived as too hostile to Russia.
Putin is likely to f**k all this up and find his economy collapsing next year and find himself strung up to a lamp post shortly after
The UK has a nasty habit of providing target practice for all sorts of nasty people, rather than being an aggressive fighty force with teeth, mass, and intent to act as a real deterrent. I fear more of the same with this unless politicians quickly gear up UK industry, as well ordering lots of stuff and recruiting lots of soldiers, sailors and airmen etc.
Chucking away/selling off lots of valuable kit, rather than storing as war reserves, is not going to hep either. Forget any help from the unreliable Americans as Trump and co are compromised. As the protesters there are saying: “DANGER, DANGER. Russians in the White House.”
Because europeans are so reliable right? Merz doesn’t even have the political power to get Germany into a peace keeping force. The entire European side of Nato is a credibility joke. 5 years ago europeans wanted to disband nato on cost alone. Now Look.
Nobody wanted to disband NATO.
Chris, Germany deployed troops to Afghanistan (NATO Article 5 following 9/11 attack on USA) and was one of the largest contingents. They lost 59 soldiers and 3 policemen dead in Afghanistan. 245 German soldiers and 4 police officers suffered injuries of varying degrees caused by hostile activity. They initially deployed well over 20 years ago. How then does Merz not have political power to deploy German troops into a combat zone in 2025?
I know of no ENATO member who wanted to disband NATO on any grounds 5 years ago; on the contrary European countries continue to want to join NATO. Mr Trump on the other hand has often cast doubts on the role and viability of NATO, especially in his first term, and has threatened to fail to support nations on Article 5 if that nation has not met NATO defence spending targets. That would essentailly amount to disbandment of NATO.
Well the Spanish have essentially been doing sod all for NATO for ages.. so.
In reality the UK has committed as much as it can with its Baltic battlegroups and committing another battle group the south east area of Europe is going to stretch the army to break, unless they lose a commitment to balance and the only available battalion level commitment I could see would be moving one of the BFC light role battalions. But a light role battalion is fuck use in Ukraine, so you would need to change it up to mechanised infantry and the 1 in 3 rule would mean shifting 3 light role battalions to mec and how the hell do we do that apart from keeping warrior for the AI battalions and using the new boxers to build 3 light role battalions into mec battalions…. But they would also need more warm bodies for that as well and any battle group would need fires and heavy armour and CS CSS…ummm
No extra manpower for the Army till beyond 2030 Healey said.
Stamer will grandstand. And it will all die down again.
To be honest I don’t think we are going to see any peace deal in Ukraine anyway, Putin is simply playing Trump for a fool, Putin is quite happy to keep grinding away, he like all great Russian leaders does not care at all about lives and they are sending older men out to the meat grinder anyway, so it’s a pension reduction programme for Russia that will not impact on long term demographics.
Jonathan, MoD has said that Britain’s contribution would be loggies and trainers (presumably in PM vehicles), not Infantry in Warriors.
Who or what would provide Force Protection for loggies and trainers has not been stated but it could be the French?
If you think about it providing full we will go to war security guarantees to a large country with a huge border that is not part of NATO is a disaster and completely awful for European armies to manage.
Reasons why
NATO and Europe are purely defensive in nature, but with a massive long border with a very offensively focused enemy.l that’s bad news because is far easier to concentrate offensively than it is to create a secure defence plan.. essentially Russia can force Europe to burn money and resources on defence, because you cannot relax your defensive posture. That is why NATO in the Cold War constantly put pressure on the Soviet Union in all areas of political warfare and where possible engaged in supporting kinetic operations, pure defence will fail in the end.
NATO makes it easier to defend that border by load sharing..essentially not every nation needs to have forces at the border at all times, the defensive alliance means tripwire duties can be shared. But ukriane would give the ENATO nations 3000km of border they need to occupy with tripwire forces outside of NATO, that means essentially every nation supporting Ukraine with a Guarantee if it’s to act as a deterrent will need to send adequate tripwire forces…. That is one hell of a job.
It essentially weakens core NATO defences, it creates the opportunity for political split as not all NATO nations may wish to participate.. you could easily get a situation in which some NATO nations end up at war with Russian as they defend Ukraine and others are not.. this would essentially shatter NATO.
It also means Europe will need to dedicate more of its effort to defending dirt in Europe and less on worldwide geopolitical and geo strategic goals. Now because Trump is short sighted he thinks that is a win for the USA, sadly he’s probably wrong, because what it actually it means china is sitting there reevaluating the power dynamics on the board and how quickly it can take apart western hegemony and specifically US and western power in the indo pacific regions…which European nations utterly focused in on European matters and cut out of working with the U.S. on world wide geostrategic issues that is 23% of the worlds wealth and power china can cross of the board.
In many ways, the Ukraine war just got hotter, and the chances of direct conflict between Europe and Russia could have increased tenfold. Only under the UN flag could international forces carry out peace monitoring as neutrals. Putin will not allow some key members of NATO into Ukraine, and without his concurrence, it’s a non-starter.
Given that North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese troops (officially supplied by their Governments) are fighting in Ukraine, how does Putin have a say in any other nations jumping in if really needed?
The US, for one, will not sanction any Western land forces if Putin refuses entry. The US know Putin will fight if he feels encircled, and that can only lead to a dangerous standoff.
‘I would expect the Europeans to deliver the bulk of the security guarantees to Ukraine backed up by American help.’
Then we’d better get a move on. Ukraine wants the lionhearted Brit troops on the ground. Nothing less will do.
The U.S. has 3,000 Abrams and Bradleys in reserve stocks. We need 1200 each of those, refitted, paid for by NATO, pronto, to reform 1(Br)Corps quartered in depth rapid reaction role in Ukraine.
Finland, Denmark, Germany, France et al to secure mission critical ports and airports, provide GBAD, logistics support. Actually, belay that, we’ll have to secure those as well. Step forward the RAF Regiment and Royal Marines. Air and naval support provided from across NATO.
If we get cracking now, you never know, we might be ready by the time the levantine haggling stops.
Then all we need to do is find 100,000 trained troops.. not sure granddad is still up for it to be honest 😂🤣
Indeed…but we may very well have a number of years in which to find them. Putin will not swallow NATO troops in Ukraine until his economy is well and truly shot (and, quite possibly, him as well)…
The secret to finding more soldiers is straightforward, improved pay and conditions via local overseas allowance, duty free cars, petrol coupons etc.
We know what to do. We’ve done it before. It works.
I think we gave them lots of free fags and booze. That’s what the navy did.
And the NAAFI! How we spoilt them!
Monro,
HMG has said that it will provide logisticians and training teams. There will have to be Force Protection of those personnel too but that need not necessarily come from the UK.
HMG always wills the mission without the means.
There are many miles still to be travelled.
As a key mover of this Coalition Of The Wiĺling, the UK really has to step up to the plate now militarily. ENATO should not be afraid of facing up to the Russian military, they have mass, we have superior weapons, training and doctrine.
While we worry about land force numbers and capabilities, ENATO’s primary asset is its air power. A couple of air defence wings with Typhoon and Rafale, an interdiction/strike wing with F-35s, backed by AEW, EW and Protector-level UAVs, and Russia is not going to be so chipper anymore. Particularly when we have a few batteries of Storm Shadows pointing their way.
The air will ride shotgun for our land forces. Where ENATO is short is the air defence shield against missiles and drones. We need to be grabbing a stockpile of Patriots and Arrows, churning out more Sky Sabres and changing up a gear on the manufacture of countet-drone systems like Skyranger and Dragonfire. The longer Putin stalls and evades talks, the bigger window in which to get this essential kit into theatre.
ENATO can do all that, but the big issue then becomes the very small land force element we are likely to have. The practical target is reported as somewhere around 25,000. That is worse than hopeless to.man a 600-mile front. The number needed is more like 100,000 but we could get away with 50-60,000 if we get our coops right.
The troops can’t be there as blue helmet peacekeepers, nothing like enough numbers and no deterrent at all. We should see it as the Ukrainian fighting troops manning the front line and the ENATO forces being their division and corps reserve troops. If Russian forces breach the agreed demarcation/ceasefire line, then ENATO forces must be ready to react aggressively and Putin and ROW should be clear that this is the conops from the start. Attack in our direction and we will meet you with a barrage of fire and bayonets fixed.
If we act as the ready reserve force rathet than a peacekeeping one, then we might get away with 50,000-60,000 troops. It would mean that the Willing would need to double their force contributions and vow retribution on backsliders like Hungary, Spain, etc.
As a prime mover of the initiative, the UK would need to field at minimum one of our two armoured infantry brigades and also a good tranche of divisional troops, something like 7,000.in total. That is do-able.
To sustain that though, with four-monthly rotation of troops, would stretch us pretty thin. If we are going to do this Valley of Death job, as I think we must, HMG will have to look at mobilising the reserves, so that we have a ready force working up in the UK and readying for likely deployment to UKR.
We’re we to approach it along the above lines, it is I would conclude most unlikely that Putin would push his luck against well-armed and battle-ready ENATO forces, as he could suffer a serious reverse on the battlefield.
As said by another poster above, whether Putin accepts or rejects ENATO forces appearing on the battlefield is of no consequence. He is using North Koreans and others, we can storm in as ostensible peacekeepers or as Ukraine’s allies, we don’t need his permission.
It will need a far greater mass of
…yep, and that would be me who said it should not be up to Putin/Trump. Useless Starmer et al need to order and stand up 3x new Squadrons of Typhoons on a re-opened aerodrome (Scampton?) for starters.
A mate still in and single digit months away from his medical discharge told me he was pulled in and told “oh you can still do your job though” and basically offered a new contract that he naturally refused.
But he is one example of someone who was deemed not suitable for Army life anymore as MND perm to suddenly months later it was decided well you can stay in mate no big deal just keep doing your job.
The point is the Government yet again has kicked increasing mass to the long grass of 2030 and beyond so are we now at the point they are going to do everything to hold onto the current mass because I as I mentioned months ago with the projected sign off rates you will be looking at the Army being only 69k by the end of 2025 and first quarter of 2026.
That’s also a psychological issue with sub 70k Soldiers in claiming we can do this and that, I don’t think the Americans will take us seriously.