US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that US troops would not be sent to help defend Ukraine against Russia, while in London yesterday, British Secretary of State for Defence Jonathan Healey said that the UK is still ready “to consider putting boots on the ground” to shore up any peace deal in Ukraine.
Trump said in a television interview that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean Peninsula from Russia are “impossible.”
Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
Trump said after his meeting in Alaska on Friday last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin was open to the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine.
However, on Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends he was asked what assurances he could provide that US troops would not be part of defending Ukraine’s border.
“Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president,” he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later on Tuesday said that “US boots will not be on the ground” as part of any potential peacekeeping mission.
The president also said in the interview that he is optimistic that a deal can be reached to end the Russian invasion, but that Ukraine would have to set aside its hope of getting back Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, and its aspirations of joining NATO.
“Both of those things are impossible,” Trump said.
In London, Healey told ITV that “the [British] prime minister [Keir Starmer] has made clear that he’s ready to consider putting UK boots on the ground in the circumstances of a negotiated peace.”
The military head of NATO’s forces in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich, was to give an update “on the current security environment” as “diplomatic efforts to secure peace in Ukraine progress,” the head of the alliance’s military committee said.
Healey said that the UK and “many other nations” wanted to support Ukraine to deter any future Russian hostilities and provide assurances that “we will stay with them to try and secure a long-term peace.”
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