PARIS – European leaders are meeting in Paris on Thursday to make preparations for Ukraine’s security after the war. They are angry that Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t talk to them. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are co-chairing the meeting. It is a new attempt to put more pressure on Moscow and make it clear what Ukraine’s future security will look like.
Putin said in Beijing the day before the summit that Russia would “resolve all our tasks militarily” if there was no peace settlement. He said that Russian troops were moving forward on “all fronts” and that Ukraine’s army could no longer attack.
Before the session, President Macron, who was with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said, “We Europeans” are ready to give security guarantees as soon as a peace deal is completed. Macron said that the preparatory work is done, but the specifics of the guarantees are still “extremely confidential.” The guarantees should include sending European troops to Ukraine, giving them training, and having the United States provide “backstop” support.
But Russia’s foreign ministry has already said no to the idea. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said the guarantees were “absolutely unacceptable” and a “danger to the European continent.” She said again that Russia would not accept the presence of foreign forces in Ukraine “in any format.”
Zelensky has claimed that he is sure that his friends will help “increase pressure on Russia to move towards a diplomatic solution.” However, he also said that he has not heard “any signs from Russia that they want to end the war.” Zelensky told French magazine Le Point that Europe and the United States need to work together closely. He said that European security guarantees alone “might not be enough.”
After the Paris summit, U.S. President Donald Trump will call. He has said that the U.S. might support any European peacekeeping proposal, but they would not send American troops to the ground. The conversations show that European leaders are getting more and more frustrated with Putin. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently called Putin “the most severe war criminal of our time.”