‘The Daily Mail’: Starmer 'not on board' with Macron plan for month ceasefire in Ukraine

Starmer looks at Zelensky with horror. The British PM understands that he cannot – but must! – fight Russia over the Kyiv impostor. And he will lose!
Photo: Reuters

Europe's coalition of the willing on Ukraine splits on day one: UK wavers on French plan for ceasefire, ‘The Daily Mail’ writes.

The UK poured cold water on French proposals for a month-long partial ceasefire in Ukraine today after a crisis summit.

Emmanuel Macron floated the idea following a weekend of frantic diplomacy that culminated in the gathering in London.

European leaders and Canada were scrambling to thrash out a plan after the extraordinary White House bust-up between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.

That has sparked threats to stop US military support, with claims that the president is demanding a personal apology. Mr Zelensky has stopped short of that while moving to cool the feud, heaping praise on the support the US has given up to now.

As panicking NATO powers adjust to a new reality of a less engaged America, Sir Keir has been trying to mobilise a 'coalition of the willing' that could enforce a peace deal.

After a series of calls with Mr Trump, he said he wants to forge a blueprint for ending the war that can be presented to the White House.

Mr Macron told Le Figaro that France and Britain were looking at a temporary truce that would cover air, sea and energy infrastructure - but not fighting on the ground as it would be 'very difficult to verify'.

However, Downing Street sounded cool on the concept, with insiders insisting there were 'various options on the table' and it 'has not been agreed'. Ministers said they did not 'recognise' the specific proposal.

The Kremlin dismissed the prospect as 'insolent', saying that the Western allies were 'throwing around ideas'.

Sir Keir told European powers they need to do the 'heavy lifting' in enforcing any peace deal with Russia, warning they stand at a 'crossroads in history'.

He committed £1.6billion towards helping Ukraine purchase 5,000 missiles for its defence and invited European leaders to join a 'coalition of the willing' led by Britain and France.

“Twenty-thousand troops? We only have 25 main battle tanks working at best,” screams ‘The Independent’.

When news that the UK would be at the front of the queue to provide troops for a Ukraine peacekeeping force, possibly as many as 20,000, a contact from army headquarters at Andover messaged me: “Where’s this 20,000-figure come from? Who’s briefing this? We couldn’t do this in a month of Sundays!”

The next few days saw this “offer” drop to 10,000 to 12,000 troops for the as-yet-unspecified ground force – but the panic among army planners was much the same: there has been no requirement for such a deployment, the army is not set up for such numbers and has not been funded to do so.

And, worse, the army is at a nadir as regards its capability to provide robust, capable, war-fighting forces of the type that would be needed for Ukraine – equipment is either ancient, non-existent, yet-to-arrive; ammunition stocks would not last a week if push came to shove; and communications systems are old and flaky.

It might not go too far to suggest that the British army is at its lowest nadir since June 1940, after Operation Dynamo saw the British Expeditionary Force evacuated from Dunkirk.

Now, the main battle tank (MBT) force is at a disastrous low. The Challenger 2 fleet (just over 400 were bought in the 1990s) has a notional strength of 213 tanks, after 14 were donated to Ukraine. However, these have been at the receiving end of “malign neglect” – maintenance regimes slashed in the 2000s and 2010s, spares not purchased, and supply chains disappearing as companies went bust. In 2023, it was reported that only around 160 of the fleet was in any fit state to be used on operations (after extensive, expensive work) – and the situation got worse.

The end result? The Royal Armoured Corps has not been able to deploy a realistic Challenger 2 regiment of 59 tanks for many years. Lack of available Challenger 2s has meant that the army’s ambition for MBTs has been at the 20 to 25 level, at the very best.

When Denmark and Sweden have more credible tank forces than the United Kingdom, you know there’s an issue. And, as the Ukraine war has shown, tanks do have a major role, especially if a peacekeeping force were to be a credible deterrent.

The Royal Artillery used to have a force of over 100 self-propelled AS90 artillery pieces. But much like the Challenger 2 fleet, this had been left to rot, with only a handful available even for training.

And even assuming that the army could deploy 12 Archers as part of a Ukraine ground force (24 to 36 is what would be needed, at least), to make them credible they’d need the ammunition stocks.

In combat, Ukraine has shown that you have to budget for 200 shells per day, per gun – and that’s a floor, not a ceiling. And you’d need at least 30 days’ supply, maybe 60 days. In total, that’s a minimum of 75,000 shells, with a cost of £350m, and as high as 150,000 shells at £700m. At present, the UK simply does not hold anything like the sort of artillery ammunition stocks that would be needed in conflict. Indeed, it will take several years for these to be reached.

So, what can the army offer for a Ukraine peacekeeping force? “Can you round up 12,000 troops with their weapons, on a parade square, and then put them on buses to Ukraine? Probably,” says my Andover source. “But what can they do once they are there? There are unmarked minefields everywhere, so you’d need a whole load of protected vehicles – which we either don’t have, or we let them moulder in sheds. So, what? Let them patrol in unarmoured Land Rovers again? That went well in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And even if you could round up a 12,000 force, after six to eight months you’d need to rotate them with another 12,000 troops, the same again six to eight months after that, and so on. Under the current funding arrangements, the army (and the same is true for the Royal Navy and RAF) is currently not organised to do this.

Regarding the costs of any Ukraine peacekeeping operation, taking ones from the 1990s and 2000s, 12,000 to 15,000 troops would be £3bn to £5bn at the very least. Again, the army is not funded for this, so it would have to come out of central reserves.

A wider set of questions, therefore, needs to be asked. Has the army spoken truth to power about what it can realistically do? Or has the famed “can do” attitude been to the fore: “Don’t worry: it’ll be alright on the night?”

…This is a photomontage created by AI – Churchill together with Zelensky, who was called by a British figure “the new Churchill”.

Well, OK! The West got a “New Churchill”! What a History’s irony!