Poland rejects Trump envoy’s suggestion it would deploy troops to Ukraine

Poland has rejected a suggestion by Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, that it could be part of a force deployed to Ukraine under a peace deal to end the war there.

Speaking on Tuesday to Fox Business about proposed peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in Turkey this week, Kellogg said he believed that they could lead to a “pretty fast” end to the war.

Asked what that peace would look like, one of the aspects Kellogg mentioned was the deployment of a “resiliency force” made up of “the Brits, the French, as well as the Germans and now actually the Poles”.

They would “have a force west of the Dnieper River, which means it’s out of contact range, and then to the east you have a peacekeeping force”, said Kellogg, without specifying which country or countries would be responsible for the latter force.

“We have this thing pretty well planned out,” he added, saying the plans have been shared with the Ukrainians, Russians and members of NATO.

However, Kellogg’s suggestion that Poland would contribute to any force deployed to Ukraine was quickly rejected by Polish defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also serves as deputy prime minister.

“There are not and will not be any plans to send the Polish military to Ukraine,” wrote Kosiniak-Kamysz on X, adding that Poland’s role is to “defend NATO’s eastern flank and provide logistical support” to Ukraine. His post was shared by foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, who wrote that he “confirms” it

Speaking to the Polish Press Agency (PAP), the defence minister added that “neither I nor foreign minister Radosław Sikorski nor others have received any suggestions in this matter” of providing troops.

Kosiniak-Kamysz added that Poland’s allies in the so-called “coalition of the willing” supporting Ukraine “perfectly understand the role that Poland is to play…as the centre of logistical and infrastructural support for such a mission”.

On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited Kyiv with fellow “coalition of the willing” leaders Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz for talks with Volodymyr Zelensky.

A Polish deputy defence minister, Cezary Tomczyk, likewise told PAP today that Poland “will not send troops as part of potential peacekeeping forces to Ukraine” and that there are “no talks underway on this matter”.

Instead, Poland would provide logistical support for such a mission, particularly through Rzeszów, the Polish city that has become a hub for aid to Ukraine, said Tomczyk.

The spokesman for Poland’s foreign minister, Paweł Wroński, told news website Gazeta.pl that “Poland will support Ukraine as it has been doing so far: organisationally, financially, humanitarianly and in terms of military aid”

“We do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, but we will support – in terms of logistics and political support – countries that will possibly want to provide such guarantees in the future,” he added.

Poland’s government has in the past repeatedly emphasised that, while it remains supportive of Ukraine and attempts to secure a just peace, it will not deploy its military to Ukrainian territory.

In February, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that “we do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, but we will support, also in terms of logistics and political support, countries that will possibly want to provide such guarantees in the future”.

A poll by the Opinia24 agency for broadcaster Radio Zet last month found that most Poles (56%) were opposed to sending Polish troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force. Only 32% were in favour. A United Surveys poll for website Wirtualna Polska in March found as many as 86.5% opposed.

The two frontrunners in Poland’s upcoming presidential election – the winner of which will become commander-in-chief of the armed forces – have both also expressed opposition to sending Polish troops to Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told ABC News that Russia cannot accept the idea of a European security or peacekeeping force in Ukraine after any potential ceasefire.

For Poland, deploying troops to Ukraine also comes with historical baggage, given that much of what is now western Ukraine was, before World War Two, part of Poland and the two nations have a long, difficult and at times bloody history in the area.

Main image credit: NATO/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)