Britain and France are said to be holding secret talks over the prospect of sending troops to Ukraine to guarantee security in the event of a ceasefire agreement, it has been reported.

A senior NATO official reportedly told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) that talks were taking place between officials in London and Paris to solidify approaches to implementing a ceasefire deal which may see Ukraine squander territory.

One possibility is an Anglo-French contingent patrolling the contact line between Ukraine and Russia, according to the NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to comment publicly on the situation.

The report stated: ‘Paris and London are trying to prepare options for different scenarios so that if the new US leadership asks how European countries can get involved, they have ready options to support Kyiv.’

Such a move was needed to guarantee the participation of European countries in peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in the event of mediation by US president-elect Donald Trump, according to the Radio Liberty source.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said that Paris ‘does not rule out any option’ concerning troop deployment, while former UK prime minister Boris Johnson said last week that a European force should protect the frontier with Russia.

‘I don’t think we should be sending in combat troops to take on the Russians… But I think as part of the solution, as part of the end state, you’re going to want to have multinational European peace-keeping forces monitoring the border, helping the Ukrainians.’

He said: ‘I cannot see that such a European operation could possibly happen without the British.’

The MoD declined MailOnline’s request for comment.

The report comes days after US president-elect Trump tapped retired Lieutenant General and National Security Adviser Keith Kellogg for the role of special envoy to Russia and Ukraine.

Kellogg’s plan to force a ceasefire in Ukraine was laid out in a policy paper for conservative US think tank America First published earlier this year that is likely to form the backbone of the incoming Trump administration’s approach to managing the conflict.

In it, Kellogg along with co-author Fred Fleitz lambasted the Biden administration’s handling of the Ukraine war and said the US’ economic and military might should be used to leverage Kyiv and Moscow into talks.

The retired general advocated for pushing Ukraine into ceasefire negotiations by threatening to pull US aid, while simultaneously telling Moscow that Washington would boost support to Kyiv should Putin not agree to a diplomatic solution.

Under Kellogg’s plan, Ukraine would have to cede a considerable chunk of occupied territory to Russia and agree with Western countries not to attempt to join NATO for an extended period of time.

In return, the US would help Ukraine to develop a ‘long-term security architecture’ to reinforce its defensive capabilities for the future – and levies would be placed on Russian energy sales to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction along with contributions from Europe.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service, said last week that Russia held the complete strategic initiative on the battlefield.

He also added that Russia is open to negotiations but stated that the Kremlin would ‘categorically reject’ any ‘freezing’ of the current frontline, demanding that Ukraine relinquish areas of the four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – that the Kremlin has illegally annexed without fully occupying.

Trump has famously said that the Russia-Ukraine war would never have started had he been president and claimed he could bring the conflict to an abrupt halt – without ever revealing his plans for doing so.

‘I can’t give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I’m not going to be able to use them.’

But Kellogg’s plan to end the war is expected to provide the foundations for Trump’s approach, particularly now that the retired general has been tapped as special envoy.

In his April paper, Kellogg recognised the solution would be a bitter pill to swallow but would ultimately be the quickest way to end the bloodshed.

‘The Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people will have trouble accepting a negotiated peace that does not give them back all of their territory or, at least for now, hold Russia responsible for the carnage it inflicted on Ukraine.

‘But as Donald Trump said at the CNN town hall in 2023, “I want everyone to stop dying.” That’s our view, too,’ the paper concluded.

Other members of Trump’s inner circle have also put forward similar suggestions.

In September, Vice President-elect JD Vance offered former US Navy Seal Shawn Ryan an outline of how peace may be brought about in Ukraine under Trump.

‘What it probably looks like is something like the current line of demarcation between Russia and Ukraine becomes like a demilitarised zone, heavily fortified for the Russians don’t invade again,’ Vance told the former Seal on his podcast.

‘Ukraine remains an independent sovereign. Russia gets the guarantee of neutrality from Ukraine.

‘It does not join NATO and some other allied institutions. Germans and other nations have to fund Ukraine’s reconstruction,’ Vance added.

That telling, albeit vague, description of what a Trump-negotiated end to war in Ukraine could look like was subsequently echoed by a Wall Street Journal report that emerged days after the election.

Citing three sources ‘close to the president-elect’, the WSJ claimed Trump’s transition office is considering one proposal that would prevent Kyiv from joining NATO for at least 20 years in exchange for lucrative arms deals.

In the meantime, the conflict would be halted by the implementation of a large demilitarised zone (DMZ) that would effectively freeze the fighting in place and force Kyiv to relinquish up to 20% of its territory.

But the sources offered no insight into how such a buffer zone between Russia’s border and unoccupied Ukraine would be monitored or managed, other than to say it would not be staffed by American peacekeepers.

This suggests troops from other NATO nations, including the UK, would be tasked with manning the DMZ.

‘We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European… and we are not paying for it,’ one source was quoted as saying.

‘We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine… Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.’

The proposal draws comparisons with the DMZ that has divided North and South Korea since the armistice agreement that brought the Korean War to an end in 1953.

But the Russia-Ukraine conflict is vastly different, leading observers and analysts to warn that implementing a DMZ in Eastern Ukraine would face huge resistance.

Several obstacles must be circumvented before the conflict can be frozen and a ceasefire introduced – starting with the evident lack of enthusiasm from those expected to agree to and uphold the proposal.

Days before Trump secured his election victory, Volodymyr Zelensky openly declared that making any concessions to Putin would be ‘unacceptable for Ukraine’ and ‘suicidal for Europe’.

The Ukrainian President has made countless similar declarations since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

In addition, Zelensky’s foremost European partners Britain, France and Germany have already vowed to support Ukraine’s armed forces in their fight against Moscow’s troops ‘for as long as it takes’.

Those sentiments were echoed by the European Union’s designated foreign policy chief, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who is expected to succeed Josep Borrell as the EU’s top diplomat.

An ardent critic of Russia, Kallas told a confirmation hearing last month: ‘The situation on the battlefield is difficult.

‘That’s why we must keep working every day. Today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes and with as much military, financial and humanitarian help as needed.’

This messaging suggests that most European leaders – with the notable exception of a few individuals such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban – are united behind the Ukrainian war effort.

They would not be enthused by the prospect of shouldering the responsibility of funding, staffing and managing a demilitarised zone that is proposed but not backed by the White House.

Implementing this so-called buffer zone would also be extremely difficult from a logistical standpoint.

Firstly, the DMZ would need to span the 800-mile length of Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia and the frontline in disputed territory, from the northernmost Ukraine-Russia border town of Senkivka in Chernihiv to the city of Kherson in the south, from which Putin’s forces withdrew across the Dnieper River in late 2022.

Secondly, the conflict in Ukraine is very much in a state of flux, with frontlines being redrawn almost daily.

Moscow’s men are pushing back Zelensky’s defensive lines in Donetsk, while Ukraine’s armed forces continue to hold a considerable pocket of Russian soil in the western Kursk region. Various reports suggest North Korean troops have been drafted in to fight alongside Putin’s soldiers there.

Both sides are likely to make a push to maximise the territory held in an effort to improve their bargaining position ahead of negotiations.

By contrast, the DMZ that split the Korean peninsula in half measures just 155 miles – a much smaller buffer zone that was only made possible by the US deploying boots on the ground and maintaining a military presence there long after the conflict had subsided.

Prior to the armistice deal, South Korea enjoyed full Western military support in the conflict and a ceasefire was reached only after millions of troops and civilians had been massacred.

Given Ukraine’s disdain for the prospect of ceding any territory to Russia and Europe’s apparent commitment to backing Kyiv for the long haul, it is difficult to see how a ceasefire deal as outlined by Kellogg, Vance and the WSJ could be pushed through.

Failing an exceptional feat of diplomacy by the Trump administration, the only remaining option looks to be strong-arming Kyiv into making a deal with threats of withholding sorely needed US military aid.

This would force Kyiv to capitulate – unless European partners, along with the likes of Australia, Japan and Canada – agree to maintain an adequate supply of arms to Ukraine’s armed forces.

This seems nigh on impossible, with many analysts arguing that the current flow of military aid even with US support is not enough to hold back the Russian onslaught.

‘Trump does have a legitimate point about European allies having underperformed in defence and over-relied on Uncle Sam to protect them for too long, and this is a huge wake-up call to the West,’ Dr Russell Foster, Senior Lecturer in British and International Politics at King’s College London, told MailOnline.

‘But Europe, Canada, and Australasia have let their defence spending stagnate for so long, they have nowhere near the industrial base and military infrastructure to help defend Ukraine and themselves from further aggression without American help.

‘We are likely to see major calls for defence spending and investment across NATO – but this will take years to build up and be hugely expensive at a time of economic stagnation. The future of Western defence is now looking very bleak.’

Ed Arnold, Senior Research Fellow for European Security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, added: ‘The immediate crisis within Europe will be how to continue diplomatic, military and humanitarian support to Ukraine without the US.

‘Whichever mechanism it comes through – NATO, the EU, or bilaterally – it will be incredibly expensive.’

Beyond the sheer economic toll, an effort by the Trump administration to force Ukraine into accepting a peace deal would dramatically undermine Washington’s relations with all of Europe and call into question the legitimacy of NATO.

Some analysts and politicians have cautioned such a move could even embolden the likes of China to capitalise on the West’s perceived disunity and seek to expand its influence in the Pacific.

Finally, in terms of the human cost, forcing Ukraine to squander territory to Russia will seal the fate of millions of Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.

A study published in September by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) estimated that in January 2022, nearly 6.4 million people were living in territory now occupied by Russia following the full-scale invasion.

Around 2.9 million people are believed to have fled the region, either to seek refuge in Western Ukraine or to gain asylum in Europe.

But that still leaves roughly 3.2 million people living in occupied territory, the SWP concluded.

Russia’s Interior Ministry reported that by September 2023, around 2.8 million passports had been issued to residents of occupied territories as Moscow continues its efforts to assimilate residents into the Federation.

While some citizens living in the occupied territory may have accepted their predicament, freezing the conflict and implementing a DMZ would leave untold numbers of Ukrainians trapped under Putin’s rule.