Why are UK and France talking about sending troops to Ukraine?

By David Sole

After a lull of several months the major Western press are full of stories that France and the United Kingdom may send troops to fight in Ukraine. Why has this story re-emerged and what would it mean if they did?

Of course, sending boots on the ground into Ukraine would be a major escalation of this proxy war. If these two imperialist powers and NATO members are seriously considering such reckless action it is primarily because the Ukraine project – pitting Ukraine against Russia to “wear down” that nation – is heading toward a total military collapse of the Ukrainian forces.

Another reason is related to the change of administration in Washington come January 20. President Elect Trump has expressed some reluctance to continue the open-ended military and economic support for the losing Zelensky regime. The two European nations may feel that sending troops could put the U.S. into a position where it had no choice but to stay in the game.

Almost all objective sources, pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian, agree that Russia is rapidly advancing all along the long battlefront. Many are predicting a military collapse. Even in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise invasion in early August 2024, the early gains of the big Ukrainian push have been stopped and reversed. Russian forces have been pounding Ukrainian troops and heavy equipment mercilessly. The Ukrainians are reported to have been driven out of over 40% of the territory they initially captured.

Any talk of foreign troops being sent into the Ukraine battlefields should consider the relative sizes of the two nations’ numerical strength. The Ukrainian Army is said to have about 900,000 active military and another 1.2 million reservists. Russia has a reported 1.32 million active-duty troops with another 2 million reserves. It should be noted that Ukraine is currently unable to fill the ranks on the front lines due to massive casualties. In many battles the Russians are said to outnumber the Ukrainians three to one in the number of troops.

Britain has a much smaller military with perhaps 109,000 personnel and France claiming a bit more with about 270,000 troops. By comparison the U.S. Army has over 1 million – but the U.S. is not talking about sending troops to Ukraine.

How many soldiers could a joint UK-French Expeditionary Force arm and transport to Ukraine in a short time and could it make a difference in the battle fields? Realistically a joint force might number a few thousand. It certainly isn’t reasonable to think that number could be in the tens of thousands. A few thousand Western troops cannot conceivably change the course of Ukraine’s repeated defeats.

In fact, sending some thousands of British and French soldiers into battle could only be conceived if the British and French air forces were sent in to give them air cover. And that may be the exact point. A major advantage for the Russians has been overwhelming air superiority in fighter jets, missiles and drones. Air defense systems sent to Ukraine by the NATO powers, including the U.S., have been depleted and have proven inadequate to offer protection. The supply of F-16 fighter jets and training of Ukrainian pilots for those combat aircraft have also been of no help.

Only a massive use of Western air power with Western pilots could perhaps give some relief to the besieged Ukrainians. But such an escalation could, and most certainly would, mean retaliation by the Russians into a wider, European war. Russia recently showed that it has the capability to accurately launch intermediate-range ballistic missiles, armed with multiple conventional warheads that travel at almost 8,000 miles per hour that could reach British and French military bases across Europe.

France and Britain may also think that sending troops into Ukraine would force the United States into a position that it could not cut support for Ukraine. But again, such an escalation could spiral out of control leading to a major European-wide war.

It should be remembered that neither the U.S. nor the Europeans really ever expected Ukraine to win this war. It was planned for over a decade to first overthrow the neutralist Ukraine government in Kiev in a CIA organized coup in February 2014. Then they spent 8 years building up the new puppet Ukrainian military. Only after Ukraine threatened to join NATO and put NATO military bases on the border with Russia, did the Russians launch their Special Military Operation.

NATO forces, especially the U.S., were happy to arm the Ukrainians with hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to keep them fighting the Russian Federation. Now, when the Ukrainians are dying in large numbers and are unable to hold back the advancing Russian armed forces, some of the U.S. ruling class are talking about walking away from Ukraine. Others in the U.S. would like nothing less than to escalate the situation into a major war with Russia. Some of the ruling classes of Britain and France apparently also are willing to risk direct war with Russia rather than consider negotiations. A great danger looms.