Spain said Monday it was “too soon” to discuss sending its troops to war-torn Ukraine as part of any potential peacekeeping force after Britain declared it was ready for such a move.
“It is too early at the moment to talk about deploying troops in Ukraine. There is no peace at the moment, and the effort has to be to achieve it as soon as possible,” Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told a joint news conference with his visiting Brazilian counterpart Mauro Vieira.
“When we have peace, we will have to see what conditions that peace requires. And whenever there is talk of any kind of deployment of forces, we have to consider what the mission is, who can make it up, under what flag, with what mandate,” he added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday he was willing to put “our own troops on the ground if necessary” in Ukraine to ensure security in Europe.
The comments came as European leaders were due to meet in Paris on Monday to address Washington’s shock policy shift on the Russia-Ukraine war.
US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers last week when he called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to talk about starting negotiations to end the conflict.