A fortification line in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, 29 May 2024. Photo: EPA / SERGEY KOZLOV

Amid ongoing uncertainty about the level of support the Trump administration is prepared to offer Ukraine, NBC News has reported that the United States could take the lead in monitoring a demilitarised buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia once a peace deal is reached to end the war.

Citing four people with knowledge of the plan, which is currently under discussion by senior Western military officials, NBC News said that while the United States had not been thought to be involved in the initial proposal, Western officials were discussing the use of troops from one or more non-NATO countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh to secure the buffer zone, with US technology being used to surveil and monitor the zone.

The plan envisages no US troops being deployed inside Ukraine, the officials said, stressing that it remained tentative and would require the approval of both Moscow and Kyiv, NBC News reported. While Moscow has already ruled out the creation of any such zone, it’s also far from certain that Kyiv would approve the plan, as it would likely require Ukrainian territorial concessions.

On Thursday, 30 of Ukraine’s allies met in Paris to formalise a plan for sending a peacekeeping force to Ukraine after a peace agreement is reached to guarantee its post-war security, with 26 countries agreeing to contribute troops to a military force, though as French President Emmanuel Macron was keen to stress, foreign troops would not be stationed on the frontline.

The Kremlin has consistently ruled out the deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova calling such a proposal “fundamentally unacceptable”, while Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that any Western force deployed on Ukrainian soil would be a “legitimate target” for the Russian military.