Trump Wants European Troops in Ukraine. Europe's Voters Aren't Convinced

The risks involved in sending troops to Ukraine run much higher for border countries, Poland says

- Stacy Meichtry, Bertrand Benoit & Max Colchester

A plan to send thousands of European troops into Ukraine if a peace deal is reached between Kyiv and Moscow is running up against a key skeptic: the European public.

President Trump has recently warmed to the idea of the U.S. providing some form of security guarantees to Ukraine after France and the U.K. proposed a so-called "reassurance force" to Ukraine following a peace deal to deter further attacks by Russia.

European leaders, however, are contending with the inconvenient fact that many voters are opposed to any deployment that places troops in harm's way. Eastern European countries don't want to divert forces away from their own borders, which form the eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Opposition is also fairly widespread in Italy and Germany, which is haunted by the legacy of World War II.

When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently said he planned to begin consulting parliament about a possible military deployment in Ukraine, the reaction was guarded. His own foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said such a deployment would stretch the Bundeswehr's capacity since it was already building an armored brigade in Lithuania to protect NATO's eastern flank. Other political leaders said the discussion was premature since there was no sign a peace deal was imminent.

Any troop deployment by Germany can only be decided by parliament, where the government has a relatively small majority. Opposition parties on the far-right and far-left are all virulently against dispatching troops to Ukraine. And a survey by the Insa polling firm last week showed 56% of respondents opposed a German contribution, a rise compared with the spring.

"I fear the Bundeswehr may not have the capacity to take on such a task without leaving us unprotected at home," said Leonard Wolters, 28, who works in marketing for a startup in Berlin.