French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that twenty-six countries are prepared to contribute to an international force that would provide security guarantees for Ukraine once a peace agreement with Russia is reached. He made the remarks following a summit of Kyiv’s allies.
Macron said he, fellow European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a call with U.S. President Donald Trump after their summit and U.S. contributions to the guarantees would be finalised in the coming days.
The meeting of 35 leaders from the “coalition of the willing” – of mainly European countries – was intended to finalise security guarantees and ask Trump for the backing that Europeans say would be vital to make such guarantees viable.
Commitment From 26 Countries
“As a form of reassurance, 26 countries have committed to deploying troops to Ukraine, where they will be present on land, on sea or in the air,” Macron told reporters, standing alongside Zelenskyy at the Elysee Palace in Paris.
Macron said security guarantees would involve above all commitments to rebuild and bolster Ukraine’s armed forces.
Germany and other countries pledged they would be involved in that effort. But Berlin said it would only decide on a military commitment once conditions were clear, including the extent of U.S. involvement in security guarantees.
Macron did not say which countries had agreed to provide troops but France and Britain are among those that have indicated a willingness to take part in a force to reassure Kyiv and deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again.
On his call with the coalition leaders, Trump said Europe must stop purchasing Russian oil that he said is helping Moscow fund its war against Ukraine, a White House official said.
“The president also emphasized that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts,” the official said.
Macron said the coalition and the United States had agreed to work more closely on future sanctions, notably on Russia’s oil and gas sector, and on China.
Months Of Talks
Members of the coalition have talked for months at various levels to define their prospective military support for Ukraine if and when there is a final truce – still a remote prospect.
But coalition governments have said any European military role would need its own U.S. security guarantees as a “backstop”. Trump has made no explicit commitment to go that far.
His special envoy Steve Witkoff met French, British, German, Italian and Ukrainian senior diplomats ahead of the summit, before briefly attending the opening session.
Two European officials said the coalition also wanted to highlight a lack of progress toward direct peace talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy since Trump hosted Putin in August, and prod Trump to raise pressure on Moscow now.
Having rolled out the red carpet in Alaska, Trump on Wednesday accused Putin of conspiring with China and North Korea after the three countries’ leaders staged a show of unity in Beijing at a lavish commemoration of the end of World War Two.
Putin told Kyiv on Wednesday there was a chance to end the war in Ukraine via negotiations “if common sense prevails”, an option he said he preferred, although he was ready to end it by force if that was the only way.
Putin also ruled out the deployment of troops from NATO nations to Ukraine as part of a peace settlement. But NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte dismissed his objections.
“Why are we interested in what Russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It’s a sovereign country,” he said at a conference in Prague before joining the Paris summit by video link.
“Russia has nothing to do with this,” he said. “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
