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UK ready to send troops, jets, ships if Trump clinches Ukraine ceasefire, defense chief says
By Morgan Phillips
Published December 11, 2025
Britain is preparing to take on the "heavy lifting" in Europe if President Donald Trump secures a Ukrainian ceasefire, U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey said, outlining a deployment-ready coalition that London has been quietly organizing for months.
The defense chief insisted that Trump is leading the negotiations for peace, even as leaders from Germany, Britain and France huddled with Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently to try to craft an alternative to a U.S.-brokered proposal the Ukrainian president viewed as too deferential to Russia.
"We are ready to step in behind the president in his push for peace," Healey said during a briefing with reporters after meeting with War Secretary Pete Hegseth on AUKUS, the Australia–UK–US nuclear submarine-building deal.
"We are ready to step in as he forces the pace of the negotiations in the way that only President Trump can. Because if he can get a ceasefire agreement, we are ready to do the heavy lifting in Europe."
EUROPEAN TALKS RESHAPE UKRAINE’S PEACE PLAN AS ZELENSKYY REFUSES TERRITORIAL CONCESSIONS
Trump has said Ukraine "has to be realistic" about a peace plan that would include ceding territory to Russia, a prospect Zelenskyy has insisted is unacceptable. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Thursday he, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had proposed to Trump that they finalize the peace proposal with U.S. officials over the weekend.
Britain Defense Secretary John Healey says his nation is ready to deploy troops to enforce Russia–Ukraine ceasefire. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via Reuters)
Healey said the U.K. is prepared to send troops and equipment to enforce the peace deal once it is signed.
"For the last six months we've got 200 military planners, over 30 nations working together. We've (made) reconnaissance visits to Ukraine," he said. "We have the troops ready, we have the planes available. We have the ships on standby to be able to deploy."
Healey offered one of the clearest signals yet that Britain expects to play a central role in enforcing any postwar security arrangement, even as Europe remains divided over how a deal should be structured.
While territorial claims appear to be the main sticking point in negotiations, questions remain over what sort of security guarantees the West would offer Ukraine. The initial proposal the U.S. brokered with Russia stipulated that Western troops and jets would remain outside Ukraine in NATO territory.
Zelenskyy and European leaders met in London to reshape the peace proposal with Russia. (Toby Melville/Pool/Reuters)
Trump has said Ukraine "has to be realistic" about a peace plan that would include ceding territory to Russia. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
NO UKRAINE PEACE DEAL AFTER LENGTHY FIVE-HOUR PUTIN-WITKOFF-KUSHNER MEETING
Western officials have been debating whether any agreement would require a multinational force to monitor front lines or secure key infrastructure inside Ukraine once a ceasefire takes hold. Healey suggested Britain is preparing for that possibility, saying the U.K. and a coalition of more than 30 nations have already positioned troops, aircraft and ships that could deploy if the terms of a deal allow for an international presence on the ground.
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Healey attended meetings in Washington just after the White House released a national security strategy that took an unusually severe tone toward Europe, warning of political decline and calling for the U.S. to "cultivate resistance" within European nations. The strategy warns that Europe’s economic and social problems are "eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure."
The document also calls for Europe to "take primary responsibility for its own defense," a point Healey said the U.K. is already prepared to meet, brushing off questions about whether the strategy had sown division inside the transatlantic alliance.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/uk-ready-send-troops-jets-ships-trump-clinches-ukraine-ceasefire-defense-chief-says