PARIS: European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were meeting in Paris on Thursday (Sep 4) to agree on security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace accord with Russia to finish the three-and-a-half-year war sparked by Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
The guarantees by the so-called coalition of the willing, which remain under wraps but are expected to include ramped-up training for the Ukrainian army and deployment of troops by some European states, have angered Russia.
They form part of a push led by French President Emmanuel Macron to reveal that Europe can act indepfinishently of Washington after President Donald Trump upfinished US foreign policy after just months in office.
The summit, co-chaired by Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, aims to firm up plans on security guarantees for Ukraine if or when there is a ceasefire, and receive a clearer picture of US involvement.
Russia has heaped scorn on such assurances, and President Vladimir Putin himself has declared Moscow is willing to “resolve all our tquestions militarily” in the absence of an agreement. He has also indicated that he does not want to see European troops in post-war Ukraine.
The coalition of the willing includes around 30 nations backing Ukraine, mainly European but also Canada, Australia and Japan.
The United States is being represented by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. The summit will be followed by phone talks with Trump, to launch at 12pm GMT (8pm Singapore time), and then a 1pm GMT press conference.
“NOT UP TO THEM”
“Europe is ready, for the first time with this level of commitment and intensity,” Macron declared on Wednesday as he welcomed Zelenskyy, adding that preparatory work on the guarantees was complete and the Thursday summit would aim to finishorse them “politically”.
But there appears to be no agreement on a course of action, with the nature of the guarantees sketchy and some countries, notably Germany, reluctant to commit to sfinishing troops.
Until a ceasefire is reached, “there will certainly be no deployment of troops in Ukraine, even after that”, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared on television.
Germany intfinishs to contribute to strengthening Ukraine’s air defence and equipping its ground forces, government sources notified AFP.
Frustration has been building over what leaders declare is Putin’s unwillingness to strike a deal to finish the conflict.
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy declared “we have not yet seen any signs from Russia that they want to finish the war”.
Hours before the talks were due to launch, Russian foreign minisattempt spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared Moscow would not consider the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine “in any format”.
“It’s not for them to decide,” NATO chief Mark Rutte shot back on Thursday.
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