U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (front L) is greeted by French President Emmanuel Macron (C) while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky (rear R) shakes hands with Finnish President Alexander Stubb (rear 2-R) on Wednesday at the start of a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris to finalize security backstops for Ukraine if a cease-fire with Russia ever becomes a reality. Photo by Ludovic Marin/EPA
Leaders of 34 mostly European backers of Ukraine attending a meeting in Paris on Thursday were set to sign off on key security guarantees for their besieged neighbor, including a reassurance force, air patrols and a naval force to neutralize mines menacing Ukrainian shipping.
The so-called “Coalition of the Willing,” headed by French President Emmanual Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, was working through several different scenarios to ensure planning and military preparedness were ready to deal with any eventuality following a cease-fire.
What to do if Russian troops fired on a reassurance force was one of the key unanswered questions being look at by the gathering, which was also attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
U.S. President Donald Trump sent his special envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Trump, who will join from Washington virtually, said he was not convinced Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin were at the point where they were ready to reach an agreement, although he stressed that he remained optimistic.
Trump has offered “backstop” American support, but insisted that it was for Europe to take the lead on post-war security arrangements.
Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday, Putin threatened that unless Ukraine accedes to his demands, he would have no choice but “to solve all our tasks by force,” although he said he was prepared to sit down with Zelensky on condition he traveled to Moscow for the meeting.
“If common sense prevails, then it is possible to agree on an acceptable option for ending this conflict. [Trump’s] sincere desire to find this solution means there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel,” Putin said.
Putin’s conditions for ending the war are for Ukraine to surrender and its status to revert to the pre-1991 era, before independence, when it was essentially a satellite of the Soviet Union.
Trump appeared to have accepted that the prospects for face-to-face Putin-Zelensky talks had receded for now after expectations were raised following his Aug. 15 summit with Putin in Alaska.
“Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done,” Trump told CBS News on Wednesday.
“I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelensky,” Trump said.
Kyiv remains highly skeptical of any promised cease-fire due to Moscow’s track record of violating such agreements in the past, amid fears it would use any pause in the fighting to rebuild its depleted war machine in preparation to attack Ukraine again further down the track.
However, Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrii Yermak, speaking after meeting with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris, said the security guarantees must be ironclad but that he believed Trump’s “peace through strength” strategy could work in persuading an aggressor to back down.
