French President Emmanuel Macron hosted about 30 leaders in Paris on Thursday to discuss plans for Ukraine and acknowledged that not all European countries want to send troops to the country as part of a potential future peace deal.
“It’s not unanimous,” Macron said while insisting that some European countries will still send a “reassurance force” to Ukraine despite Russia’s strong objections to any sort of deployment of Western troops and the lack of US support for the idea.
Macron said the deployment he envisions would not act as peacekeeping forces or replace Ukrainian troops on the frontlines. He said the purpose would be to send troops to “strategic” towns and bases and to “act as a deterrent against potential Russian aggression.”
A day earlier, Macron said any European troops deployed in Ukraine would respond to any potential Russian attacks, a scenario that could risk a direct NATO-Russia war and nuclear escalation.
The meeting Macron hosted on Thursday was the third summit of what he and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are calling the “coalition of the willing,” echoing the term used for the countries that backed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The summits began in response to the Trump administration’s push for peace in Ukraine and steps to limit military aid, although US weapons shipments have resumed after a brief pause.
While Macron and Starmer are pushing for a European-led initiative for Ukraine, the UK has acknowledged that a troop deployment to Ukraine won’t happen without US support.
“The prime minister has been very clear that in bringing together European nations and other allies from across the world to prepare a force that will secure the peace, it will need a US backstop, US involvement,” British Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard said last week.
