MadridPedro Sánchez has opened the door to sending Spanish troops to Ukraine on a peacekeeping mission. The president of the Spanish government announced this Tuesday, after the summit in Paris of the so-called Coalition of Volunteers, that next week he will open a round of contacts with the parliamentary groups in Congress to raise this scenario. Sánchez has stipulated that the sending of Spanish military personnel takes place upon the arrival of a ceasefire with Russia. “Spain must be part of the solution”, he defended in a press conference in which he hoped that 2026 would be “the year that ends this war”. “It is a moment of hope and opportunity,” he stressed.
In this Tuesday’s meeting, which has caused Sánchez to be absent from the celebration of Military Easter in Madrid, the 35 countries that are part of this alliance with Ukraine have made progress in concretizing a plan on “how to articulate and deploy” a “scheme of security guarantees” so that a peace agreement can come to fruition. “We will have to provide support and participate actively,” said the Spanish president, who justified the need to deploy troops after the cease-fire to “protect the civilian population” and prevent clashes from reactivating.
“We are ready, as we have done in other latitudes and parts of the world, to consolidate peace with the presence of the armed forces. Why shouldn’t we also do it in Europe?”, said Sánchez, who noted the “importance” that Spain, as a “big European country” that defends multilateralism, is present in this operation. Now, that of military deployment is a delicate debate for the space to the left of the PSOE – within the same government there is Sumar – and, in the case of the PP, Sánchez proposes to discuss it when the relationship between the Socialists and those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo is almost non-existent and is going through one of its worst moments.
Sánchez has advanced that he will not yet be able to give figures or more specifics to the parliamentary groups because the technical teams of the Coalition of Volunteers are still working on the design of this guarantee plan. “It is to be defined”, he said. For now, the Spanish president will transfer this generic approach to the rest of the parliamentary arch. In addition, Sánchez has advanced that he also intends to help Ukraine in the reconstruction with economic resources mobilized through the European Union and also “those we can give bilaterally”. In the last visit to Spain by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, less than two months ago, the head of the Spanish executive already announced 615 million euros in military aid to Ukraine and 200 million more for reconstruction.
The sending of troops on a peace mission is, according to Sánchez, a coherent move that is in line with the position maintained by Spain from the beginning with Ukraine. “That of firm support, resounding and absolute”, claimed the Spanish president. This bet “is part of a much broader geopolitical vision”, remarked Sánchez, who linked support for Ukraine to the “unequivocal commitment to Europe” as well as to an “international order based on rules” and to “the observance of fair rules and not the law of the jungle”.
Criticism of Trump
This geopolitical vision defended by Sánchez includes the rejection of Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela. For the first time since the operation, the Spanish president has spoken out in a press conference – until now he had done so through messages from X – against a “very dangerous precedent that pushes the world into a future of uncertainty and insecurity” that recalls “past times”. “Spain will not be complicit in this attack”, he warned, and said that he would put “all the resources to strengthen the multilateralism that is weakening”.
As in Ukraine, Sánchez has affirmed that “international legality and the territorial integrity of nations” cannot be violated in Venezuela either. In Trump’s case, the Spanish president has called the move “illegal”, which he said seems to have as its objective “changing the government of a country to appropriate its natural resources”. In this sense, the Spanish president has offered to act as a mediator “so that there is a transition that ends in clean elections”.
