Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a day after Donald Trump returned to power, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who wants to meet the US President, said on Tuesday, the 21st of January, that any ceasefire agreement would require at least 200 000 European peacekeepers to prevent a new Russian attack and urged European leaders to do more to protect the continent, reports Reuters.
The prospect of a quick settlement has focused attention in Kyiv and Europe on the urgent need for security guarantees to prevent any future Russian attack and the idea of a peacekeeping force has been floated.
“Of all Europeans? 200 000, that’s the minimum.
That’s the minimum, otherwise the number is nothing,” said Zelenskyy when asked about the idea of a peacekeeping contingent in a post-speech interview.
This number is roughly the same as the entire French armed forces, which the French defence ministry estimates at just over 200 000 in 2020. Zelenskyy said that at least that number would be needed to guarantee security if the total number of soldiers in the Russian armed forces would be 1.5 million, while Ukraine would have only half that number.
Zelenskyy said that this would be only part of the security guarantees Ukraine would need.
The Ukrainian leader said that Kyiv was working to arrange a meeting between him and Trump.
“Teams have been working on the meeting, everything is in the process now,” Zelensky said of the efforts.
Trump, who returned to office on Monday, has said he will quickly stop the war in Ukraine, but has not said how.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would not accept Russian demands to drastically reduce the size of its army, predicting that Russian President Vladimir Putin would demand Ukraine reduce its armed forces to a fifth of its size.
“This is what he wants. We will not allow that,” Zelenskyy said.
In his speech, Zelensky said that Europe must become a strong global player capable of guaranteeing peace and security for itself and others. He suggested that Europe has less leverage over Washington because the US believes that its allies are not contributing enough to security.
“Does anyone in the US worry that Europe might one day abandon it – stop being an ally? The answer is no,” Zelenskyy said.
He said Europeans must develop a common security and defence policy and referred to Trump’s remark before his inauguration when he proposed that NATO members significantly increase defence spending to 5% of GDP.
“If 5% of GDP is needed to cover defence spending, then let it be 5%. And don’t play with people’s emotions that defence should be compensated at the expense of medicine or pensions – it’s not fair,” said Zelenskyy.