A UN-backed peacekeeping force in Ukraine would not only fail to deter Russia but also legitimize its illegal territorial conquests.

By Andreas Umland

Since spring 2025, Western security guarantees for Ukraine have played an important role in public debate and political planning regarding the end of the Ukraine War. The recently announced peace plan and the 28-point counterproposal to an earlier US proposal issued by the UK, France, and Germany state that Ukraine should receive “reliable” or “robust” security guarantees. These documents and the associated public debate have once again brought to the fore the question of what such guarantees might mean.

Although European and US leaders discussed security guarantees throughout 2025, the specific future commitments, measures, and coordination needs remain unclear. If these issues are not clarified in advance, there is a risk that paper promises of “security guarantees” will not be fulfilled. Inconsistent implementation of support and defense commitments would not only be dangerous for Ukraine but also further undermine an already shaken European security order and the rules-based international system.

One source of misunderstanding regarding security guarantees is their association with the familiar instrument of peacekeeping forces under the aegis of an international agreement or organisation, such as the UN. Indeed, the deployment of foreign forces on Ukrainian soil can enhance Ukraine’s security. However, in the current context, the presence of UN or other neutral troops would be the wrong type of armed assistance for Kyiv, even after the conclusion of a permanent ceasefire.

Until 2021, the deployment of multinational troops from third countries on the territories of the so-called “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk might have made sense to implement the contradictory Minsk agreements of September 2014 and February 2015. Today, however, after the conflict has expanded and intensified over the past nearly four years, an international peacekeeping force makes little sense. Since February 2022, the nature of the Russian-Ukrainian war has fundamentally changed—as have the conditions for the presence of foreign forces on Ukrainian soil.

First, given Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, the deployment of UN or other peacekeeping forces to secure a line of contact that does not correspond to the Russian-Ukrainian border would be problematic from an ethical, political, and international law perspective. Although Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is obliged to implement the UN Charter, Moscow will certainly use its veto power on the UN Security Council or at any other negotiating table to protect its own national interests rather than those of the international community.

In any peacekeeping agreement, the Kremlin would only consent to a deployment format that protects or expands its territorial gains. As a result, the United Nations or any other third-party country involved with a peacekeeping mission would help to secure the fruits of Russia’s aggression. By solidifying the battle lines, the peacekeeping forces would be participating in Russia’s violation of fundamental UN Charter principles, such as respect for territorial integrity and national sovereignty.

Second, in the event of a new escalation and resumption of Russia’s advance into Ukraine, hardly anyone would expect neutral troops to be able or willing to fight against one of the world’s largest conventional and nuclear military powers. 

However, the willingness and ability to contain the movements of Russian forces would be the most crucial task of a hypothetical peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow would believe that neutral UN or other peacekeeping forces would have more than symbolic significance in calming a renewed escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It is therefore unclear what the purpose of a peacekeeping mission would be.

Third, strong Chinese involvement in such a mission is a serious possibility as it would enhance the status of any UN or other multinational forces in Ukraine. Unfortunately, since the start of the Ukraine War in February 2014, Beijing has provided Moscow with diplomatic, political, economic, and technical support. As a result, there is little confidence in Kyiv and Western capitals that Chinese troops would engage constructively, respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, fully comply with international law, and support the most just peace possible. Instead, blue helmets from China might act as an armed force of the informal Russian-Chinese anti-Western alliance on the territory of the pro-Western Ukrainian state.

Against the backdrop of such complications, the occasional discussions about UN or other international peacekeeping forces (going beyond an observer mission) along a future line of contact as an instrument or even a panacea for resolving the Russian-Ukrainian conflict are a distraction. An intense debate about this currently irrelevant idea could instead prolong Russia’s negotiation theatrics. Under today’s conditions, this discussion does not contribute to finding a realistic path to a sustainable solution to the conflict and to achieving lasting peace.

The primary source of security for Ukraine is and will continue to be its own armed forces—regardless of whether the war continues or ends soon. The most obvious way to increase Ukrainian security, both before and after a ceasefire, will be to intensify and expand military-industrial collaboration and other resilience-related cooperation between Ukraine and the member countries of the Coalition of the Willing (CoW).

Sustaining, or even expanding, current support for Ukraine with weapon deliveries, joint ventures, intelligence exchange, and combat training under ceasefire conditions might, to some diplomats and politicians, appear counterintuitive, unnecessary, or even provocative. However, the viciousness of Russian Ukrainophobia—as demonstrated by Moscow’s ruthless behaviour in Ukraine since 2022—is and presumably will remain high. Moscow’s aggression can only be constrained by a Ukraine armed to its teeth, a condition that applies to both war and peacetime.

The provision of security guarantees for Ukraine by CoW countries will largely entail the continuation or extension of current military assistance to Kyiv through weapon deliveries, investment in the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, intelligence sharing, combat training, technical cooperation, and financial support. Those countries that currently assist Ukraine and will provide security guarantees should transform their wartime aid into peacetime military support for Ukraine, and can justify such a redesignation as designed to deter Russia from re-escalation.

Neither multinational peacekeepers, a European “reassurance force,” nor other seemingly innovative approaches currently appear to be realistic instruments for implementing future security guarantees for Ukraine. Instead, the optimal support for Ukraine before and after a ceasefire will be largely similar.

Dr. Andreas Umland is an analyst with the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI). Andreas Umland is also an Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Umland holds a PhD in Politics from Cambridge, a DPhil in History, as well as a Diploma in Politology from FU Berlin, an MPhil in Russian Studies from Oxford, and an MA in Political Science from Stanford.      

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