Switzerland could contribute troops to a future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine if it were requested and the government agreed, Swiss armed forces chief Thomas Suessli said in an interview published on Sunday.
“We could probably field around 200 soldiers in nine to 12 months,” Suessli told newspaper SonntagsBlick, stressing that it would be a matter for the government and parliament to decide if any appeal were made to Switzerland.
According to WSJ quoting European officials, Britain and France are developing a plan to deploy up to 30,000 European peacekeepers in Ukraine if Moscow and Kyiv reach a cease-fire deal.
Talk of sending peacekeepers was purely hypothetical for now because it remained unclear how the situation between Russia and Ukraine would develop, Suessli added.
“There’s no peace yet, and there’s been no request from the United Nations,” he said.
Neutral Switzerland participates in several peacekeeping missions around the world, with the largest in Kosovo, where it has soldiers deployed in support of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR).
European powers have discussed the possibility of sending peacekeepers to Ukraine amid diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the conflict, three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
US Shift In Ukraine Stance
Washington’s approach has shifted significantly with the first meeting between U.S. and Russian negotiators on Ukraine.
The officials met just a month after Donald Trump returned to the White House, with Ukraine and NATO partners sidelined by a relatively inexperienced team of Trump aides and Putin granted concessions even before the talks got under way.
Trump’s rush to impose an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine has stoked fears of a peace deal with Putin that could undermine Kyiv and Europe’s security and alter the geopolitical landscape.
The U.S. and Russia’s talks in Riyadh, their first on the Ukraine conflict, led to an agreement on forming negotiating teams and restoring diplomatic ties, signaling a thaw in relations. Before the talks, European leaders criticized Trump for offering concessions to Moscow by rejecting NATO membership for Ukraine and downplaying its chances of reclaiming occupied territory, calling it appeasement.
(With inputs from Reuters)
