Swiss could send 200 troops for Ukraine truce: army

GENEVA: Switzerland could send 200 peacekeeping soldiers to Ukraine in the event of a truce, the head of the country´s armed forces told the Blick newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Thomas Suessli told Blick it was important, however, “to distinguish between peace-enforcement commitments and peacekeeping commitments. “Peace-enforcement means peace must be imposed by force of arms. Switzerland does not participate” in that case, he stressed.

“Peacekeeping presupposes Russia and Ukraine agree to cease hostilities and accept the UN sending a peacekeeping force to guarantee peace,” Suessli said. “If we were ordered to participate in a mission, we would develop a training concept to train up our militia members and prepare them for engagement. Then we would begin recruiting and training the military,” said Suessli.