UK eyes troop pull from Estonia, Cyprus to bolster Ukraine brigade

Britain may need to withdraw troops from Estonia and Cyprus to deploy a brigade to Ukraine following a potential peace deal with Russia, The Times reports, citing senior defence officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously stated that the UK and France had committed to sending a force of about 5,000 troops each to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia.

However, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been warned that the army lacks the capacity required to handle the scale of the operation.

“Realistically, sending 5,000 means we need to have 20,000 in total. To get to those kinds of numbers, we would have to pull people out of the Baltics or out of Cyprus. That would not be ideal. If it's the Baltics, it just opens us up on another front. And Cyprus has incredibly important capabilities,” a senior defence source noted.

Earlier discussions considered larger deployments—initially up to 60,000, then 40,000, and later 20,000—before settling on a 5,000-strong contingent.

Currently, around 900 British troops are stationed in Estonia as part of NATO’s mission to deter Russia. The UK Ministry of Defence has emphasised that commitments to allies remain unchanged. Any final decision on deploying troops to Ukraine must be approved by Parliament and the government.

By Jeyhun Aghazada