Edward Lucas: Centre for European Policy Analysis senior fellow on Prime Minister Starmer's proposed 'coalition of the willing'

Europe could be stepping up to the plate, but it's unclear if it will go the full mile in supporting Ukraine against Russia. 

A 'coalition of the willing' has formed - alongside a fractious interaction between the US and Ukrainian presidents.

Centre for European Policy Analysis senior fellow, Edward Lucas, says a partial truce could be the first step. 

But he warns protecting Ukraine further could prove tricky, especially if Russia attacks deployed European troops. 

"If a drone hit British or French or German barracks and killed a few people, what do we do? Send a cross-press release - or do we fire back and hit something inside Russia?"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brian Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Europe is forming a coalition of the willing to try
and guarantee peace in Ukraine. They've had an emergency leader's
summit last night, this after the Zelenski Trump dvounced scrap
at the weekend. Starma is promising billions more for Ukraine
and he wants his buddies in Europe to follow suit.
Every nation must contribute to that in the best way
that it can, bringing different capabilities.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And support to the table, but all taking responsibility to act.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It would Lucas's senior fellow at the Center for European
Policy Analysis, it would hello.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Well, hello, Ryan, nice to hear you.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Nice to be with you. So it looks like Europe's
got America's message loud and clear.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Finally, yes, I'm not quite sure what the message is.
Do we think that Trump is sad, mad or bad?
Or maybe we should be glad that he's finally kicked
the Europeans into action. But certainly things are moving faster
than they have done before and in the right direction.
Whether it's quite enough is another matter.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
What more is needed?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
We need to start off by really giving Ukraine the
weapons it needs to defend itself and to deter further
Russian attacks. That would mean that any cease far talks
start from a position where Ukraine's gone a military edge.
It looks as though there's going to be an initial truce,

(01:18):
just a partial truce to see if they can manage
to stop the Russians hitting energy infrastructure and things like that,
and if that succeeds, it'll go on to a cease far.
This is obviously to be presented to Trump because the
American plan is I think, much less attractive to the Ukrainians.
If the European plan works, we can go to the

(01:40):
Americans and say, hey, our plan's working, why you support it?
And there's not much chance I think of our supporting
Trump's plan, which is basically a surrender to boot him.
And then the hard staff starts, which is how do
we actually protect Ukraine postsease far? And that's going to
be really tricky for the Europeans.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
So you've got Stama talking about boots on the ground
and birds in the sky. But Posen has said very
clearly through Levrov, I don't want any troops on the border,
peacekeepers whatever, I don't want them. How's this going to work?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well? Indeed, and this will be a big test for
the Europeans. Are we willing to deploy our forces in
harm's way in Ukraine to protect Ukraine post cease far
against the wishes of the Russians? And what happens if
the Russians then attack our troops? You drone hits of
British or French or German barracks and kills a few people.

(02:34):
What do we do send across press release or do
we far back and hit something inside Russia?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Who's actually in the so called coalition of the Willing
that everyone's talking about. Who's likely to be in it?
All the big players, Well.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
It's clearly the Brits and the French are. The problem
for the others is that the countries that are most
threat aware Finns, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, Poles, Swedes, r
weg Ands, Danes are pretty tied up defending themselves. There's
not a huge number of spare troops there, and the
Estonians are worried that the small number of British troops

(03:11):
or in Estonia might be taken out in order to
go to Ukraine. The countries with really big militaries are
the Turks, for example, they could help, and there maybe
something there, but in the end to defend Ukraine properly,
you need roughly two hundred thousand troops there, two hundred
thousand getting ready to go, two hundred thousand recovering from

(03:33):
having been there. That would be the sort of rolling
deployment to give them a South Korean or West German
style defense. Going back to the days of the Cold War,
and we defended West Germany against the Warsaw Pact, and
Europe just doesn't have that. So even with the Americans,
we don't have that. So it places a huge weight
onto terrace, the belief in Russia that we will far

(03:54):
back if we're hit, and that's going to be a
test of political will as well as of military muscle.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
All Right, you would thank you very much for that.
Edward Lucas, Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
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