Swinney would send Scots troops to Ukraine if peace agreed

First Minister John Swinney says he would be willing to send troops from an independent Scotland to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.

The SNP leader said he would deploy troops in the event of an "acceptable peace" with Russia.

Speaking to the Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast, Swinney also raised concerns about the US commitment to Nato.

And he warned that a long period of peace in western Europe could be under threat.

The first minister said: "If there's a peace agreement that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine, that they find is in their interests, and part of that involves the deployment of troops from this country in that situation to be part of assuring that peace, then I would support that."

Swinney spoke to the podcast following a dramatic week in which the US Coast Guard seized a Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic.

The Marinera, a ship accused of being part of Vladimir Putin's "shadow fleet", was intercepted by the US Coast Guard a few hundred miles off the Scottish coast.

That came after US special forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took him to custody in New York.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has refused to rule out using military force to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.

Denmark says an attack on its territory would end the Nato military alliance.

Swinney said Russian aggression must be repelled and the independence of Ukraine protected.

He told the podcast: "But I also worry about the language that's been emanating about Greenland and the implications for Denmark and the implication for what that all means for the sustainability of Nato, which I recognise to be an alliance that is of enormous strategic significance."

Swinney said he shared "anxiety" about the threat of global conflict.

He noted that for most of his life, he "had a certainty that my parents' generation didn't have".

Swinney's uncle, Cpl Tom Hunter, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross after dying at Lake Comacchio in Italy months before the end of World War Two.

"So the idea of loss in conflict in turbulent international times is not some remote concept to me," he told the podcast.

"All of that is really meaningful for me about the fact that we should cherish what we have experienced since the Second World War - of that period of peace and stability and order - but it does feel much weaker today."

The first minister said that era ended with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which brought the threat of conflict "a lot closer to home".

"Literally within days of the invasion, we began to feel the effects in our own community," he said.

He added: "So I worry that the precious inheritance that came to our generation from the suffering of the Second World War, is now in jeopardy for future generations."

You can listen to the full Political Thinking interview with John Swinney on BBC Sounds.