The United States for the first time on Tuesday backed a broad coalition of Ukraine’s allies in vowing to provide security guarantees that leaders said would include binding commitments to support the country if Russia attacks again. The pledge came at a summit in Paris of the “coalition of the willing” of mainly European nations to firm up guarantees to reassure Kyiv in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. Unlike previous coalition meetings, the summit was also attended by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – president Donald Trump’s son-in-law – as well as America’s top general in Europe.
Witkoff, who has led talks with Russia, said after the summit that Trump “strongly stands behind security protocols”. “Those security protocols are meant to … deter any attacks, any further attacks in Ukraine, and … if there are any attacks, they’re meant to defend, and they will do both. They are as strong as anyone has ever seen,” he said at a joint news conference with the French, German, British and Ukrainian leaders.
Kyiv’s allies have “largely finished” agreeing to security guarantees, Witkoff said, adding that territorial issues were the most problematic area going forward. “We think we’re largely finished with security protocols which are important so that the people of Ukraine know that when this ends, it ends forever.”
Kushner said that if Ukrainians were to make a final deal “they have to know that after a deal they are secure, they have, obviously, a robust deterrence, and there’s real backstops to make sure that this will not happen again.”
As the Guardian’s Shaun Walker reports, Britain and France have declared they are ready to deploy troops to Ukraine in the aftermath of a peace deal, a major new commitment that has been under discussion for months, although one which Russia is likely to block forcefully.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that “several thousand” French soldiers could be deployed to Ukraine to maintain peace after the signing of a ceasefire agreement with Russia. A statement by coalition leaders also said that allies will participate in a proposed US-led ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism. Officials have said this would probably involve drones, sensors and satellites, not US troops.
Moscow has also given no public sign that it would accept a peace deal with the security guarantees envisaged by Ukraine’s allies. Russia has previously rejected any Nato members having troops inside Ukraine.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the agreements were “a signal of how seriously Europe and the entire coalition of the willing are ready to work for real security”. “These are not just words. There is concrete content: a joint declaration by all the coalition countries and a trilateral declaration by France, Britain, and Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said. He added that it remained to be determined how the monitoring would work and how the Ukrainian army would be supported and financed. He thanked the United States “for its readiness to be a backstop in all areas – security guarantees, monitoring a ceasefire and rebuilding.”
President Vladimir Putin attended an early Wednesday Russian Orthodox Christmas service and hailed his troops’ “holy mission” to defend Russia.“Russia’s warriors have always, as if at the Lord’s behest, carried out this mission of defending the Fatherland and its people, saving the Motherland and its people,” Putin said at the church after the service.
Several oil storage tanks were on fire at an oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod region after a Ukrainian drone attack, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said late on Tuesday on the Telegram messaging app. There were no casualties reported and firefighters were working to contain the blaze, Gladkov said.
