26 of 35 ‘Coalition of the Willing’ nations agree to send troops to Ukraine day after ceasefire

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that twenty-six nations have pledged to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, which would also include deploying international forces on land, sea and in the air. The remarks from the French leader came after a summit at which European leaders sought to pin down US President Donald Trump on the level of support he is willing to provide to Kyiv, which has been in war with Russia for three and a half years.

“The day the conflict stops, the security guarantees will be deployed,” the French president told a press conference at the Élysée Palace in Paris, standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“We have today 26 countries who have formally committed – some others have not yet taken a position – to deploy a ‘reassurance force’ troops in Ukraine, or be present on the ground, in the sea or in the air,” Macron told reporters after the summit.

During the presser, the French leader noted that the troops would not be deployed “on the frontline” but aim to “prevent any new major aggression”.

The shifting stance

Macron initially said that 26 nations would deploy soldiers to Ukraine. However, he later maintained that some countries would provide guarantees while remaining outside Ukraine, for example, by helping to train and equip Kyiv’s forces. He also did not mention which 26 nations will take part in this endeavour.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy hailed the move while standing alongside Macron. “I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step,” he said. The French president also mentioned that the US’s contributions to the guarantees would be finalised in the coming days.

The proclamation from both the leaders came following the meeting of 35 leaders from the “coalition of the willing” – mainly European countries. The summit was intended to finalise security guarantees and ask the US president for the backing that Europeans say is vital to make such guarantees viable.

During the meeting, many European nations, including Germany, Spain and Italy, have refused so far to provide troop commitments. A German spokesperson said: “The focus should be on financing, arming and training the Ukrainian armed forces,” a formula that is not vastly different from what Europe is now providing.

The meeting also came a month after alarmed European leaders travelled to the White House in the wake of the August Alaska summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The continent feared that the US president may be about to force Zelenskyy into a humiliating surrender, including loss of territory.

Trump’s hope for a trilateral meeting

Meanwhile, Trump responded to the European lobbying by claiming he had won the Russian leader’s agreement to hold direct talks with the Ukrainian president. However, Moscow rejected any such commitment and largely maintained its demand for the surrender of Ukrainian territory and a commitment that Ukraine will never join Nato.

The American leader had set a deadline of September 1 for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy. But the deadline was ignored by both sides. “We had a great relationship,” Trump said of Putin in an interview with the rightwing news website The Daily Caller. He said he was now very disappointed in the Russian president: “Thousands of people are dying; it’s a senseless war.”

While speaking to reporters, Macron noted that Europe, unlike Russia, is still stuck to its commitments. “The contributions that were prepared, documented and confirmed at the level of defence ministers under the strictest secrecy allow us to say: this work is complete and will now be politically approved.”