Britain and France to Lead a Poland Rehearsal for a Post-War Force in Ukraine

Britain and France will jointly lead the first major exercise of the Multinational Force Ukraine, a rehearsal in Poland for a job that does not yet exist. The Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday that Exercise Koalicja will run from 9 to 22 November, with about 2,800 military personnel from 11 nations on land, at sea and in the air. Three hundred of them will be British. RAF Typhoons and a Voyager tanker will fly. Soldiers from 7 Brigade, the Desert Rats, will practise the logistics of moving a force that might one day help rebuild Ukraine's armed forces.

The force is the military arm of the Coalition of the Willing, the group of countries that have promised military, economic and diplomatic support beyond the current war. Defence secretary Wes Streeting's department was explicit about the limit. The force would move into Ukraine only once fighting had ceased, and only at the request of Ukraine's government. It would not take part in offensive operations. It would not keep the peace or monitor a ceasefire. It would not sit under Nato command, and it would not be placed on the front line. Its stated purpose is reassurance, safer skies and seas, and help in regenerating Ukrainian units.

What the jets are pretending to do

The flying programme is the part that shows what "reassurance" is supposed to mean. Typhoons will simulate how they would give confidence to commercial aircraft once Ukraine's skies could be reopened. That is a planning assumption, not a date. No one in London is saying the war ends between now and 22 November. The exercise is a test of whether troops from different countries can move, protect themselves and be supplied under one command, on the territory of a neighbour, before anyone asks them to cross a border.

The 11 nations named by the Ministry of Defence are Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Poland is the ground. France shares the lead. Britain is putting in the package it usually puts in when it wants a European flag and a national one on the same mast: a brigade's logistics, fast jets, and a tanker.

The table this exercise is not sitting at

The timing is the political fact. Technical talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine are still pencilled in for Abu Dhabi between 6 and 10 November, the same week the exercise starts. Yuri Ushakov has said Europeans may come to the city for briefings and may not sit as full parties. A force designed in European capitals, rehearsed in Poland, and barred from the opening table is Europe's answer to that seating plan: prepare the aftermath, even if Moscow will not let you draft it.

Western officials have been careful, and the care is the story. A reassurance force that cannot monitor the ceasefire it depends on is a force with a gap in the middle. Who watches the line, if not this coalition and not Nato, is a question the exercise will not answer. Who pays for a long stay, and what happens if the ceasefire fails after the troops are in, are the questions that follow. Streeting's announcement answers a narrower one: can the countries that have promised support actually move together? For a fortnight in November, on Polish soil, they will try.

Why Dublin is on the same page

Europe's other diary this month is diplomatic and domestic at once. Ireland's public sector strike is now set for 12 November, the day the European Political Community meets in Dublin. Leaders who fly there will be talking about Ukraine, migration and the presidency agenda while Polish ranges are still hosting Koalicja. The war's next phase, if there is a next phase short of victory, is being rehearsed as logistics. The talks that would make the rehearsal real are still a three-way argument about who holds a chair.