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World leaders at the \u2018coalition of the willing\u2019 summit for Ukraine on Tuesday [Ludovic Marin via AP]<\/p>\nThe United States has backed security guarantees for Ukraine, including leading a truce monitoring mechanism, as France and the United Kingdom pledged to deploy forces to Ukrainian territory if a ceasefire is reached with Russia.<\/p>\n
The pledges came on Tuesday at a summit of the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d, a group of 35 countries that have pledged to support Ukraine against Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
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The countries\u2019 representatives, including 27 heads of state or government, gathered in Paris to firm up post-war guarantees for Kyiv. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron said the \u201crobust\u201d guarantees would see the US lead a truce monitoring mechanism with European participation, alongside the deployment of a multinational European force.<\/p>\n
Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a declaration of intent after the talks, setting out the framework for such a deployment.<\/p>\n
Macron said that Paris could contribute \u201cseveral thousand\u201d troops.<\/p>\n
In a sign of closer transatlantic coordination, the summit was also attended by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared \u2060Kushner, President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law, as well as Washington\u2019s top general in Europe, Alexus Grynkewich. It marked the first time the US envoys had joined the coalition\u2019s talks.<\/p>\n
Witkoff, who has led talks with Russia, \u200bsaid that Trump \u201cstrongly stands behind security protocols\u201d and that the guarantees are \u201cimportant, so that the people of Ukraine know that when this ends, it ends forever\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThose security protocols are meant to: a, deter any attacks, any further attacks in Ukraine; and b, if there are any attacks, they\u2019re meant to defend, and they will do both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kushner called the Paris meeting \u201ca very, very, big milestone\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said that if Ukrainians were to make a final deal, \u201cthey have to know that after a deal, they are secure, they have, obviously, a robust deterrence, and there\u2019s real backstops to make sure that this [a Russian attack] will not happen again\u201d.<\/p>\n
World leaders at the \u2018coalition of the willing\u2019 summit for Ukraine on Tuesday [Ludovic Marin via AP]<\/p>\n
The coalition said in a statement that the allies will participate in a proposed US-led ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism, which officials said would likely involve drones, sensors and satellites, not US troops.<\/p>\n
The coalition also agreed to establish a US-Ukraine coalition coordination cell in Paris, and to continue supplying Kyiv\u2019s front-line forces with equipment and training, as well as back them up with air, land and sea support, to deter any future Russian attack.<\/p>\n
According to the statement, the\u00a0post-ceasefire architecture would also include beefing up Ukraine\u2019s war-battered army, including by replenishing its weapons stocks, so it could act as the country\u2019s front-line deterrence against a resumption of fighting.<\/p>\n
The allies said they must still finalise \u201cbinding commitments\u201d setting out what they will do to support Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The statement was not explicitly endorsed by the US, and details of a role for Washington were watered down from an earlier draft, notably removing language that outlined the \u200buse of US capabilities to support a multinational force in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
But European officials hailed the involvement of the US envoys and their strong comments as evidence \u200cthat Washington stood behind the security framework.<\/p>\n
Russia has yet to comment on the Paris meeting and has given no indication it would accept a settlement backed by foreign troops inside Ukraine, a condition it has previously rejected.<\/p>\n
Moscow occupies about a fifth of Ukrainian territory and has not signalled a willingness to compromise, even as diplomatic efforts to end the war have intensified in recent months.<\/p>\n
Starmer said the meeting made \u201cexcellent progress\u201d, but cautioned that \u201cthe hardest yards are still ahead\u201d, noting that Russian attacks on Ukraine continue.<\/p>\n
He said peace would only be possible if Russia compromises.<\/p>\n
In the event of a ceasefire, Starmer said the UK and France \u201cwill establish military hubs across Ukraine and build protected facilities for weapons and military equipment to support Ukraine\u2019s defensive needs\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy welcomed the promised security guarantees for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important that today the coalition has substantive documents. These are not just words. There is concrete content: a joint declaration by all the coalition countries and a trilateral declaration by France, Britain and Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the talks had \u201cdetermined\u201d which countries would take the lead on ensuring security and on reconstruction, as well as which forces were necessary and how they would be managed.<\/p>\n
He added that the most significant issue still to be resolved was \u201cthe territorial question\u201d, referring to Russian demands that Ukraine give up its eastern Donbas region.<\/p>\n
Writing on Telegram after the talks, Zelenskyy said the agreements were \u201ca signal of how seriously Europe and the entire coalition of the willing are ready to work for real security\u201d.<\/p>\n
But he said that it remained to be determined how the monitoring would work and how the Ukrainian army would be supported and financed.<\/p>\n
He went on to thank the US \u201cfor its readiness to be a backstop in all areas \u2013 security guarantees, monitoring a ceasefire and rebuilding\u201d, and added that the Ukrainian delegation would continue its talks on key issues on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Germany signalled a more cautious stance.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said German forces could join to monitor a ceasefire, but would be based in a neighbouring country. \u201cWe will certainly have to make compromises\u201d, he said, adding that \u201cwe will not achieve textbook diplomatic solutions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Belgium said it would support the effort through its navy and air force, while Croatia and the Czech Republic said they would not deploy troops.<\/p>\n
European leaders present at the meeting, including Macron, Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, stressed that the statement showed renewed unity between Europe and the US on helping Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Macron and Starmer brushed aside questions about whether they could rely on commitments by Trump, particularly given his renewed claims \u200cthat the US should take over Greenland, an autonomous part of Denmark, a NATO member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States has backed security guarantees for Ukraine, including leading a truce monitoring mechanism, as France and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[591,59,57,58,50,154,1084,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-356493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-europe","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}