European countries will not be able to send 200,000 troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission, a senior European official said in an interview with The New York Times.

According to him, sending even a much smaller number of troops—for example, 40,000—would be a difficult task for Europe. He added that such a number of military personnel would not be enough to ensure a real deterrence of Russia.

Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College London, believes that more than 100,000 peacekeepers are needed to be effective, taking into account regular deployments and emergencies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at the World Economic Forum in January, had said that as part of the settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian war, it would be necessary to send at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to Ukraine as a security guarantee. Also, Zelenskyy had said that this number was minimal.