The UK and France have made “mature operational plans” to deploy a multinational reassurance force to Ukraine once hostilities cease, according to Defence Minister Luke Pollard.
In a written response to a parliamentary question by Priti Patel MP, Pollard stated that the two countries have been co-leading military planning efforts under the so-called “Coalition of the Willing,” a loose alliance of over 30 nations coordinating postwar support to Ukraine.
“Since the Coalition of the Willing Summit in London in March 2025, the UK and France have co-led military planning efforts and brought together over 30 countries at four leader level events including one in Kyiv,” said Pollard.
The most recent summit took place on 10 July, convened jointly by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. According to Pollard, leaders confirmed the development of “mature operational plans to deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased, to help secure Ukraine’s skies and seas and to regenerate Ukraine’s Armed Forces.”
While no formal peacekeeping mandate exists, the coalition’s stated purpose is to deliver post-conflict stability, deter renewed aggression, and assist with the reconstruction and reform of Ukraine’s security institutions. The concept draws loosely from past NATO peace support operations but has yet to be codified in any treaty or resolution.
Officials have not specified when the force would deploy or under what legal authority. However, defence sources have previously indicated that the reassurance force would focus on air and maritime surveillance, explosive ordnance clearance, and joint training with Ukrainian forces.
The UK and France are understood to be advocating for a modular framework that allows different nations to contribute in varying capacities without requiring a formal NATO or EU mission structure.
‘After’ hostilities cease,that will be some time off yet then! IF they really wanted to make a difference declare a no fly zone over Ukraine and start knocking down orc drones to stop the senseless bombing and deaths! Not going to happen I know because pootin will threaten to nuke us(again).
The real threat is getting involved in something heavy without the cover of Article 5: if Trump has the wriggle room to get out of it that’s exactly what he’ll do.
Shooting down Russian Aircraft is an act of War. Easy to advocate but do you really want to go to war with Russia in order to enforce a no fly zone?
Yea I know just frustrating that they are attacking civilians!
So you’re either being incredibly disingenuous or monumentally stupid.
The 12 F35As you plan to cancel were originally F35Bs. But while we have them, the primary mission of the F35As is in a training role. That’s why they are going to 207 Squadron an OCU unit. We’re buying them because we’re cheaper and can fool that idiot Hegseth into thinking they’ll carry his nukes. You fell for that too??
And F35s of all types are used for CAS, I’m assuming you know what “CAS” actually means? Guess not from your answer.
No, I think you’ve got all accolades for being stupid. Not being able to even remotely thread your replies being the latest evidence.
Great, so you’re now arguing for that a glorified T1 Hawk is vital over an actual deterrent. Amazing. You know what’s cheaper than buying F-35A? Buying actual trainers and then we can give the money to the Army that actually needs it. Win win.
Oh and I’ll give you a free hint: You can’t provide CAS with Nuclear Weapons.
He nukes us & we nuke him. He knows that, so it’s not a credible threat, just a tactic to alarm & intimidate the ignorant. Better we get in & help UKR with troops & airpower now so there can be a UKR to defend once peace is won.
Ukraine needs the means and man-power to flush out Russian forces from its sovereign territory first! Not just stuff for firing over the fence! Hope that any new weapons supply can significantly help shift the balance more in their favour. If threatening to use nuclear Russia should know what the response will be.
Unfortunately they “don’t know”… Unlike: ” Israel said in June, that without US heavy bunker buster GBU 57 assistance Israel would have no alternative but to use low- to- intemediale yield termonuclear bombs. The light around 600 kg. air dropped bombs in question are similar to the 540 kg. B61-11,” etc, etc… “Unsubstantiated” American sourcеs, which is understandable but the Administration believes… Regards.
“Unsubstantiated” = “fabricated to influence”
If you want a conventional military force to be rendered unable to sustain combat then destroying its lines of communication will do that fairly quickly.
Exactly. Just Putin bluster. When the willing put troops in to help UKR liberate its territory we may see real progress towards peace. Until then we’re standing too far off, aquiescing to Russian aggression. Until Putin is shown he can’t win he’ll just keep sending Russians into the meat grinderbesides all the Ukranian fighters & long suffering UKR population.
Good luck to the army trying to cope with it 30 years worth of cuts and under funding
As things currently stand, its hard to see us committing anything more than 3000, (6000 at a push, for a limited period).
It’s sadly becoming hard to visualise any situation that Putin would agree to a ceasefire, short of a military coup in Russia!
I would imagine the Russian military head shed must be getting extremely pissed off, having its modern capabilities trashed in the Ukrainian meat grinder!
It’s rapidly degenerating into Soviet era human wave attacks. At the end of the day, Putin doesn’t care if it costs 3 million Russian dead, or more, providing he can one day tour the burnt out wreck of Keiv in an Armoured limousine, doing a sick victory lap.
Read the details mate. Assuming they are accurate. EOD, Training and Air and Maritime , so RAF, won’t need that number.
Daniele, I doubt that such a limited force package (in numbers and scope) would provide great reassurance to the Ukrainian people. But it clearly reflects the reality of not being able to deploy significant numbers of combat arms, especially Infantry, ‘on patrol duties’.
GM,
Agreed, even a limited deployment may prove difficult to extract forces from, if conditions are heading south rapidly. France, UK and the remainder of ENATO are just beginning the process of credible rearmament. All ENATO should be more capable w/in the next 10-15 yrs. However, some have serious misgivings whether that organic capability collectively exists today, or in the near-term future, w/in ENATO.
It degenerated into “Soviet era human wave attacks” months ago. There’s actually less of them currently simply because they don’t have the orcs available to run en masse to their deaths.
I’d imagine it’d have to be an either/or with the battlegroup we have in Lithuania, surely? I doubt we could adequately equip and sustain both..
Air and Maritime surveillance.
EOD.
Training.
I’m relieved to read that, as despite Starmer and his clueless grandstanding about boots on the ground, that seems like a more low key commitment than deploying Brigades we don’t have.
So elements of 29 Engineer Group ( 33 and 101 RE and 1 MWDR ) and BATTs,
The Army is already hamstrung by double hatting committing parts to Estonia which are meant to be part of NATOs two reserve Corps, the ARRC and a French, without chunks sat in Ukraine.
I don’t see Russia ever agreeing to it anyway so I’ll believe it when I see it.
This government seems to be joking. The Armed Forces are being scrapped. It’s sending ships to the Pacific. It wants to send troops to Ukraine. What’s that? They’ve lost their minds. Meanwhile, not a single serious order for ships, planes, or tanks has been issued. It’s ridiculous and pathetic.
All our shipyards are maxed out to capacity with T26, T31, FSSS, for years yet. There’s no need to place any new orders. (Though they should be working on the design for MRSS, etc in the meantime.)
Challenger 3 programme is under way, why would we place an order for tanks? We’re an island with no land borders, we’re not Poland. Besides, there’s a lot of things we need to spend money on ahead of tanks.
Suggest you stop watching GB News and try a real news service.
We require two deployable armoured divisions at least in order to meet our commitment of a deployable Army Corps to our European allies and restore Western Europe’s conventional deterrence.
The reason we are where we are with Ukraine is because we gave security assurances to Ukraine and then got rid of the force structure that backed up those assurances. Britain has a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council but can only deploy one Armoured Brigade on extended operations. That has emboldened Putin to embark on his bloody and barbaric war of demographic imperialism. If he is not deterred, he will trigger Article 5 and think nothing of it.
That is why we need a great deal more than two Regiments of tanks, outstanding though those Regiments are.
We are where we are because the West failed to take action in 2014 when Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and seized Crimea. Had we taken the action then like we did in 2022, perhaps flooding Ukraine with weapons then…
Having a seat in the UN Security Council has nothing to do with how many armoured brigades we can or cannot deploy. 🤦🏻♂️
Failed to deter because it was abundantly clear that they no longer had the capability to take action.
Having a permanent seat on the U.N. security council brings with it the responsibility to deter aggression and keep the peace. That clearly cannot be achieved with one Armoured Brigade. If you do not believe me, then check it out with our allies. Petulant emojis are not an argument.
It is no coincidence that the ‘long peace’ in Europe from 1945 to 2014 occurred alongside the British Army On the Rhine, and a powerful West German Army.
Please let me know what purchases you’d cancel to fund all these new tanks, T31/T26 frigates or F35 warplanes?
The best way the U.K. deters is through its navy and airforce at a conventional level.
That’s a hilarious suggestion that the existence of the BAOR was the sole reason why the planet didn’t disappear in the nuclear fire of WW3 😂
The Navy and Airforce aren’t deterrents at the conventional level, not compared to land forces. The Navy can safeguard the UK, and supply lines, but a war against Russia will be a land war. Control the North Sea, Atlantic, or Arctic all we like, that doesn’t stop Russian troops crossing into Estonia.
Boots on the ground do.
Come back once you have read: LAND FORCES IN MODERN STRATEGY, Lt Gen. DeWitt Smith.
Yeah let’s have lots of tanks because they’ve been such as success in Ukraine. Scrap the entire RN and RAF to fund several thousand of the things. Let’s build a Challenger 4 with a 200mm gun while we’re living in fantasy land.
Obvious to see why you’re only an ‘armchair general’ rather than a real one.
The only true victory is deterrence. Conventional deterrence within continental Europe requires armoured divisions. At the moment, armoured divisions require tanks. Tanks have only ever been successful within combined arms groupings that have achieved at least local air superiority. Neither side has that in Ukraine. The Allies lost about 10,000 tanks during the campaigns of 1944 and 1945 even with air superiority/supremacy.
You are asking the wrong (either/or) question. In order to restore conventional deterrence in Europe, large numbers of tanks are required by the British Army right away without cancelling RN/RAF programmes. Clearly that won’t happen. But it could. 5,000 M1A1 Abrams tanks were produced from 1986 to 1992 and featured the M256 120 mm smoothbore cannon. Most of those are in storage, available for immediate refurbishment at no great cost. Army technicians select an old M-1 from the sprawling vehicle park at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama, recondition its automotive systems and ship it off to Lima, where General Dynamics swaps out its armour and installs new subsystems. The whole process can take between six and nine months.
This is the dumbest, of a long list of dumb things, you have said.
For starters both Russia and Ukraine have been hanging out for Tanks the whole time. Bad tactical employment by the Russians doesn’t negate their usefulness (and the Ukranians have been much more succesful in using them)
“Conventional deterrence within continental Europe requires armoured divisions.”
UTTERLY WRONG.
Conventional deterrence within continental Europe requires the ability to hold, and ultimately defeat the enemies invading forces. While Polish and German armoured divisions will contribute in this, the decisive determinant is air-superiority. Look at recent conflicts and not at a war where the vast majority of aircraft were propellor driven 🤦🏻♂️
So you live in fantasy land where you want the British Army to buy hundreds/ thousands of tanks without cancelling any RN/RAF procurement… 😆
Let me guess, you’d free up money by cancelling all winter fuel payments?
End the pension triple-lock perhaps?
Actually we’d have all the money we need for defence if we just stop all state pension payments. After all, people have been warned since the early 80’s to take out their own private pensions. So they can live of these and not the state.
Let me drop a line to Rachel…
Britain has committed to its allies an Army Corps.
‘The U.S. State Department recently approved a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to Egypt of M1A1 Abrams tank refurbishment, support, and related equipment for an estimated cost of $4.6 billion. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) reported the action on December 20th.
Highlighted in the announcement to refurbish and upgrade 555 Abrams tanks into M1A1SA configuration tanks.’
So £3.5Bn over five years.
Small change for us but an incalculable effect on the mindsets of our allies, particularly the United States, and a strong signal to Putin.
And no, it wouldn’t make Putin think twice – assuming he even noticed at all.
So rather than do as the Poles do and buy new M1A2 SEPv3 you think our servicemen should have to put up with second-hand refurbished M1A1s instead as they’re good enough for Egypt…
Glad to know you’ve volunteered to give up your pension, that only leaves a further £3.499999 billion to find on the magic-money tree (roughly the price of a QE class carrier).
You still haven’t read ‘Land Forces in Modern Strategy’.
In order to meet its commitments to its allies, the British Army requires mass, quickly.
It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Putin’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine took place shortly after Germany disarmed and Britain withdrew its Armoured formations from the continent.
We know what to do. We have done it before. It worked.
The idea that we can fund net zero but not a credible conventional deterrent is just plain silly.
Spock, we invented the tank and first deployed it for expeditionary warfare (France, WW1). It has ever been thus. It was never intended for home defence of our island homeland. Our armoured division is committted to NATO (the ARRC). As a NATO member we deter and if necessary defend the Euro-Atlantic region. Similarly our Navy is not intended just to patrol home waters.
Why is why we don’t need the huge tank forces or Poland, Germany, France, etc 🤦🏻♂️
We also invented the Sinclair C5, I don’t see anyone advocating its return… Just because you invent something means nothing at all.
I’m not the one advocating keeping the RN in home waters so I’m not sure why you’re whinging at me. 🤷🏻♂️
Micki on the other hand, probably wants the CSG deployed off Calais…
They,re building only 148 challenger tanks, ridiculous, no new orders for aircraft , only 19 escorts when finished, now only 15, , totally pathetic and you say everything is ok ?, Jesus.
We have more F35s on order, or didn’t hear the recent debate about 12 of them being switched to F35A.
I no point did I say “everything is ok”, but as you’ve lost the argument on facts I’m not suprised at you launching a strawman argument.
Why would we place an order for Tanks?
Because we look to be going to a 3 Armoured Brigade format and we only currently are getting 2 Regiments of Challenger 3. More broadly we need to order IFV’s and SPG’s in large numbers, and probably more Boxer ICV’s. We are an Island, but any war we fight will be on Land at some point, 2 of the last 3 where armoured wars that had little naval input.
All 3 services need expansion and enhancement.
Then please answer the question I asked originally…
are you going to cancel T26/T31 frigates or F35 warplanes to fund these extra tanks?
(Because in the real world there’s a limited budget.)
Yes. Air force and Navy programs I’d cut to fund targeted funding in the Army. Bye bye F-35A “warplanes” in the stupid nuclear sharing role for one.
Ukraine had accepted all military donations offered it. It did lobby for tanks to be able to launch a counter-offensive last-summer against the Russians – and we all saw how well that went, NOT.
NLAW and Javelin simply highlighted that the tank no-longer rules supreme on the battlefield as it once did. But I know pensioners like yourself long to see reruns of the Battle of the Bulge or Kursk ignoring that military technology has advanced over the last 80 years…
Okay more stupidity here:
Let’s start with this: The Kharkiv counter attack began with an armourmed breakthrough that caught the Russians off guard and resulted in the complete destruction of the 4th Guards Division and the biggest Ukranian advance of the war.
The Sumy Counteroffensive was conducted by using armoured forces to catch the Russians off guard and allowed a deep advance into Russia, again, using Tanks and IFV’s.
The *REALLY STUPID* “Omg the Southern Offensive didn’t work therefore Tanks are obsolete” arugment is *REALLY STUPID* because that’s like going “Well the Battle of the Bulge didn’t work therefore Tanks are obsolete.” Imagine that, launching an attack into a heavily prepared enemy position exactly where they where expecting it to go, with green troops and without an inferiority of fires and directly into some of the densest minefields of the front didn’t work out? Shocker.
Unlike you, I’ve trained on both NLAW and Jav, and understand the limitations of both, and how dangerous and difficult it is to actually ambush armour (especially when that armour is supported by UAS and Infantry). A reminder that Ukraine basically sponged up almost every ATGM system that NATO could provide and that still hasn’t been enough. [And also worth remembering that carrying an ATGM is not a minor inconvenience for infantry and simply forcing the enemy to have to have one on them is rather irritating).
Unlike yourself, I’m currently in the armed forces, so hardly a pensioner, I do actually know what I’m talking about, and have a pretty good idea of what state military technology is at….
So you’d cut F35 numbers to fund this tank expansion 🤦🏻♂️
Well 12 F35s is going to only get you 60 M1A2 Abrams, so you’re going to have to scrap a lot more to fund your tank expansion. Maybe if you sell the whole RAF fast jet squadrons on the second-hand market? That’s the kind of dumb idea that I’m sure would appeal to you.
BTW what CAS are you expecting to have for all these tanks if you reduce the number of fast-jets or eliminate them completely?… 😆
^ Another belter of a stupid comment from you.
“Would what would you cut. F-35?”
“Yes.”
“So you’d cut F-35 Lol”
Yes. 12 F-35A to lug American nuclear bombs that require American permission to use, that the US has plenty of trucks to carry itself is a waste of Money.
60 M1A2 Abrams, well good thing you are psychic and can read minds. But since at the top of Mt Dunning Kruger you seem to have such a great grasp: How big is a British Armorued Regiment? Riddle me that? Since I pointed out that under current plans we are aiming for two but are moving to a three tank regiment structure? Or you know, you could ask how many MBT’s I think the Army should have instead of just assuming? But hey, that would mean you’d have to actually understand the conversation instead of just boxing at strawmen. Which seems a bit beyond you.
“Btw what CAS are you expecting if you reduce the number of fast jets.”
RAF F-35A is in the Nuclear delivery role, not CAS. But facts don’t seem to be of interest to you.
Hate to tell you this but just like posting photos on Instagram doesn’t make a girl a model, so playing Calling of Duty doesn’t count as being in the armed forces.
But you do make a strong case for the U.K. adopting Russian human wave attacks, both as a military tactic and a form of eugenics for the stupid.
Good thing I’m actually in the armed forces then and don’t play “Calling of Duty.”
post war? seems like a long time away, we’ll see again in a few years.
It’s just grandstanding by Starmer and Macron. Say lots but do nothing is the order of the day/decade on both sides of the channel.
Never would Putin agree to any type of NATO forces in Ukraine, even if he wanted for an off-ramp. Allowing NATO to move even further east would finish him.
Naturally… It is his method and it’s working.
With what will we be deploying a reassurance and peace keeping force?
I think we could manage up to 3000-4000 troops as an enduring presence at a push, but that’s about it with current force numbers and troops/ equipment availability- not exactly going to intimidate Mad Vlad the Impaler. Besides peace is a long long long way away- Putin wont settle for anything but eventual massively costly victory in Ukraine, he definitely wont tolerate any NATO troops being deployed there- cue the threats of nuclear annihilation from the tool.