Zelensky welcomes ‘concrete step forward’ as 26 allies pledge troops to guarantee Ukraine’s post-war security

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared visibly upbeat following a meeting in Paris of the so-called Coalition of the Willing on Thursday in which he said 26 countries had agreed to commit troops to ensure the country’s post-war security, Le Monde reported on Thursday.

"Twenty-six countries have agreed to provide Ukraine with security guarantees. I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step forward”, Zelensky said at a press conference alongside French President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron, who co-hosted the meeting at the Élysée Palace, confirmed that 26 mainly European countries had pledged troops “to be present on land, at sea or in the air” as a security guarantee for Ukraine. “The day the conflict ends is the day the safety guarantees begin”, Macron added.

Stressing that the force would not be stationed on the frontline, Macron said that its objective would be to “deter new Russian aggression” against Ukraine following the signing of a peace deal to end the war, rather than to wage war against Moscow.

He added that the US contribution to security guarantees for Ukraine would be agreed in the “coming days”, and said that if Russia refused to make peace with Ukraine, both Europe and the US would impose new sanctions on Moscow.

Before Thursday’s meeting began, however, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova ruled out what she described as “foreign intervention in Ukraine”, saying that it was “fundamentally unacceptable” and was intended only to preserve Ukraine “as a springboard for terror, for provocations against our country,” Russian news agency TASS reported.

Zelensky said that an eventual meeting with Vladimir Putin was “not a matter of pleasure, but of necessity”, and reminded reporters that Kyiv had “supported proposals” for a meeting with the Russian leader “in all formats”, but accused Russia of dragging its feet.

The Ukrainian president described the off-hand, non-commital invitation to visit Moscow for peace talks that Putin issued to Zelensky during a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday as “the best way to derail the negotiations”, adding that for the time being he saw no “willingness on their part to end the war”.