France said 26 nations had agreed to take part in a “reassurance force” for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, but it was unclear whether the United States would provide the air power that is seen as crucial to the viability of any such mission.
“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,” French president Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday, after hosting a summit of leaders from about 30 states that make up a “coalition of the willing” that is ready to bolster Ukraine’s long-term security.
Speaking alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris, Mr Macron said they had talked to US president Donald Trump about the results of the meeting.
“The conclusions of this call are simple: in the coming days, we will finalise US support and security guarantees. The United States ... has been involved in every stage of the process,” the French leader said.
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However, a White House official briefing reporters about the call said that Mr Trump had urged European states to do more to put pressure on Russia and China – the biggest buyer of the energy exports that replenish the Kremlin’s war chest.
“President Trump emphasised that Europe must stop purchasing Russian oil that is funding the war – as Russia received €1.1 billion in fuel sales from the EU in one year," the official said. “The president also emphasised that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts.”
Mr Trump said late last month that the US was open to playing a “co-ordinating” role to help a European-led security mission in postwar Ukraine, and might provide air support but would not send peacekeepers.
British prime minister Keir Starmer spoke to the Paris summit by video-link and emphasised that the multinational coalition “had an unbreakable pledge to Ukraine, with President Trump’s backing, and it was clear they now needed to go even further to apply pressure on [Russia] to secure a cessation of hostilities.”
Mr Starmer’s office also said that he “welcomed announcements from coalition-of-the-willing partners to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine to further bolster the country’s supplies.”
German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said European leaders “expressed the hope that the United States would continue to make a substantial contribution to the joint efforts to support Ukraine, formulate security guarantees and shape a productive diplomatic process.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said after the summit that there may be a role for peacekeepers in postwar Ukraine, and noted that he told Mr Zelenskiy earlier this week that “Ireland is open to participating in an appropriately mandated mission of this kind.”
Russia has said it will never accept western troops in Ukraine and would regard any peacekeeping mission as a hostile “intervention”.
Mr Zelenskiy emphasised the need for defence guarantees to be legally binding, recalling how US and British security “assurances” given to Kyiv when it handed over its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal to Moscow in 1994 had proven to be worthless.
“We are counting on a US backstop,” Mr Zelenskiy added. “The exact American contribution will be specified in the coming days.”
Mr Zelenskiy and other leaders also stressed that the central plank of Ukraine’s future defence should be its own powerful military – contrary to Kremlin demands that the country’s armed forces should be subject to strict limits on their size and power.
“A strong Ukrainian army is and will remain the central element of security guarantees. Therefore, it is about the capabilities of our army – financing, weapons, and defence production,” he said.
