‘Are We Prepared?’ Doubts Swirl Around UK PM Starmer’s Plan for ‘Boots on the Ground’ in UkraineKurt Zindulka 4 Mar 2025
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is facing growing questions about his pledge to deploy boots on the ground and planes in the air over Ukraine when the UK Armed Forces has seen the number of soldiers dwindle to the lowest since the Napoleonic era and other services hollowed out.
After months of declining support amid domestic failures, Prime Minister Starmer has recently attempted to recast himself as an international leader through the war in Ukraine. The leftist PM has joined with French President Emmanuel Macron — who has also suffered domestically over the past year — in offering up their soldiers to “protect the peace” in case of a conflict-ending deal between Kyiv and Moscow.
Following the summit of European leaders in London on Sunday, Starmer doubled down on his pledge for “boots on the ground, planes in the air,” despite no other country yet coming forward to join the so-called “coalition of the willing”.
Deep questions remain about the readiness of the British military to take on the monumental task of keeping the peace between the much larger militaries of Russia and Ukraine.
It also remains to be seen if Prime Minister Starmer will put his plan of deploying troops into Ukraine to a vote in the parliament. With both France and the UK facing budget crises, convincing their citizens to finance a potentially open-ended and deeply expensive military operation on the other side of the continent may prove difficult politically.
Such an operation would also put Paris and London in the position of actively defending another nation’s borders while failing to police their own against illegal migration.
MP Rupert Lowe of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party said Sunday that he has “lots of questions”, asking the prime minister to outline: “Where would troops be deployed? How many? How many as part of the overall mission? For how long? What percentage of our combat ready force would be dedicated to it? How much ammunition do we have? How much equipment? How many active tanks, planes? How quickly could more be manufactured if required? How much would we need to import? How much would that all cost?”
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