KYIV
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published Wednesday.
\nUS President Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war \u2014 though he has never explained how.
\nSpeaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier, Zelensky said any deal to end the conflict would need to be overseen by a large foreign contingent of peacekeepers.
\nZelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, \u201cwe need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers\u201d to secure any peace deal.
\n\u201cFrom all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It\u2019s a minimum. Otherwise, it\u2019s nothing,\u201d he said.
\nHe said any other arrangement would be akin to the monitoring mission led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in eastern Ukraine that disintegrated when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
\n\u201cThey had offices and that\u2019s all,\u201d Zelensky said, underscoring the need from the Ukrainian perspective for an armed force to prevent further Russian attacks.
\nThe Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said that Ukraine must be represented at any talks with international parties to end the conflict and that only robust security guarantees can dissuade Russia from attacking again.
\nUkraine\u2019s fear that Moscow would use a truce to rebuild its military stems partially from the decade that followed peace agreements between Kremlin-backed separatists and Kyiv in 2014 which failed to halt Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022.
\nIn an earlier address at Davos, Zelensky called on Europe to establish a joint defense policy and said European capitals should be prepared to increase spending, while calling into question Trump\u2019s commitment to NATO, the US-led security bloc.
\nTrump on Tuesday indicated he would consider imposing fresh sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published Wednesday. US President Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-457042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n