RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

UK and France secretly discussing troops for Ukraine – Telegraph

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have discussed sending soldiers into Ukraine as a peacekeeping force, the Telegraph has claimed citing anonymous sources.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky first mentioned the idea last week, and said he would discuss it with Starmer when he visits Kiev. According to the British outlet, however, Starmer is not fully on board yet.

“There are challenges over what we could support, what would we want to support, and the broader question about the threat that those troops may be under and whether that is escalatory,” the Telegraph quoted a Whitehall source as saying on Wednesday evening.

Spokespeople for 10 Downing Street and the Elysee Palace did not deny that Starmer and Macron discussed the peacekeeper possibility last week at the Chequers estate in the UK, but gave no details about the conversation.

Starmer was in Kiev on Thursday, promising a “100-year partnership”pact with Ukraine.

One of the rumored plans US President-elect Donald Trump might propose after taking office next Monday involves Western troops deployed as peacekeepers along the demilitarized zone between Russia and Ukraine, supposedly running along the current line of conflict. No US forces would be involved, only “European”soldiers not acting under NATO command, according to media reports that have been impossible to verify.

Macron reportedly brought up the idea of “European” peacekeepers with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk last month, but Warsaw said it was “not planning any such actions.”

Earlier this week, Zelensky wrote on social media that he had discussed with “key allies”the “practical steps” for the implementation of the peacekeeper idea.

“We are getting slightly ahead of ourselves. We are not there yet,”one British official told the Telegraph.

Putting boots on the ground in Ukraine has been endorsed by former PM Boris Johnson, former Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, and two ex-defense ministers, Grant Shapps and Gavin Williamson.

The UK has given 12.8 billion pounds ($16 billion) in military and civilian aid to Kiev since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalated in February 2022, and reportedly trained 50,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil.

The British government’s continued support for Kiev means London “clearly does not seek to resolve the conflict,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said recently, accusing the UK of “doing everything possible to make it drag on, thus prolonging the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian brigade pioneers remote-controlled ground assaults

The boxy, machine gun-equipped vehicle lumbered across the snow-covered battlefield, with no crew aboard and marking what its remote Ukrainian operators described as a major milestone as Russian artillery fire rained around it.

Sparing soldiers for the infantry assault that came later, the unmanned device was operated at a distance by Ukraine's Khartiia Brigade in the latest advance in a conflict that has been defined by a technology race on both sides.

Khartiia released footage of last month's attack in the northeastern Kharkiv region, which combined assault and mine- laying and mine-clearing vehicles guided by drones hovering above. The unit said it was the first documented machine-only ground assault in Ukraine's war with Russia.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the claim.

The operation paved the way for a successful infantry advance, the brigade said.

"Our task is to maximally transfer reconnaissance, clearing operations and assaults... to machines that we can afford to lose," said unit spokesperson Volodymyr Dehtiarov.

Units like Khartiia are embracing innovation, seeking to save lives as Russia's full-scale invasion nears its three-year mark.

Ukrainian authorities say some 43,000 soldiers have been killed in the fighting since February 2022, but some Western officials have estimated the number may be higher.

The proliferation of cheap attack drones has made the artillery-heavy war even deadlier, soldiers have said.

Standing inside a humble storage structure at a Khartiia base, a 21-year-old platoon commander with the call sign "Happy" pointed to shelves of spare parts for their vehicles - including "kamikaze" drones fixed with anti-personnel mines used in last month's attack.

"They get as close to their (Russian) dugouts as possible... and then explode," Happy told Reuters.

Ground vehicle crews are typically based at least 2 km away to avoid attacks by enemy drones, added 28-year-old pilot "Khort".

Other Ukrainian military units are using similar technology, such as remote-controlled stretchers, to try to gain a battlefield edge over a larger and better-equipped enemy.

STEPS AHEAD

Domestic production of ground-based remote technology is expanding in Ukraine, including through grassroots companies boosted by government development funds.

In the skies above, Ukraine is also using dozens of domestically made AI-augmented systemsfor drones to reach battlefield targets, a senior official said in October.

Russia's military is also quickly adapting, said Khartiia spokesman Dehtiarov, meaning Ukrainian units like his have to innovate continually both on and off the battlefield.

"Any advantage ... is eaten up after a few weeks - a few months at most - when the enemy begins to understand, analyse, apply and scale the same technologies."

RT/Reuters