British troops deployed to Ukraine as peacekeepers could face prosecution under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), reports say. Defence Secretary John Healey reportedly dismissed calls for a derogation in response to a letter from Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge.

The Telegraph reports that the Conservative frontbencher urged Mr Healey to look into a derogation from the ECHR for British peacekeepers, warning Russia could use it to undermine UK forces, engineer clashes, and then pursue human rights cases. But in a letter seen by the newspaper, Mr Healey rejected the calls and said following the ECHR would not “prevent us from achieving our objectives".

He wrote: “We expect the highest standards of our service personnel and rightly hold them to account if they fall short of these expectations.

“Where the UK undertakes military action it complies fully with UK and international law.

“We will give due consideration to the provisions of the ECHR as we develop the details of the coalition of the willing deployment.”

He added: “Abiding by the ECHR […] will not prevent us from achieving our objectives.

“We expect those objectives to focus on rebuilding a modern and capable armed forces of Ukraine, rather than delivering combat operations.”

Mr Cartlidge said it was “disappointing” that the Government has seemingly “ruled out derogating from the ECHR for the deployment”.

Mr Healey’s letter also shared more details on the plans for the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which is being led by the UK and France.

In a meeting in Brussels earlier this month, the Defence Secretary described it as a “multinational reassurance force”.

In the letter, he said plans were focusing on assisting Kyiv to “regenerate an armed forces capable of deterring future Russian aggression”.

Sir Keir Starmer previously spoke about putting “troops on the ground” and “planes in the sky”.

The Telegraph reports it is now expected that British troops will be based in the west of Ukraine and will largely provide training, with the Royal Navy and RAF on hand to protect Ukrainian waters and airspace.

The UK Armed Forces have trained more than 54,000 Ukrainian personnel since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Prior to this, British forces carried out a training mission in Ukraine under the codename Operation Orbital which was established after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

It comes as US President Donald Trump met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, describing their brief talks as “very productive”

He has stepped up the pressure on the Kremlin and has questioned whether Vladimir Putin wants peace.

Mr Trump said he was concerned the Russian President was “tapping me along” and on Sunday night called on Moscow to "stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal".