PARIS — European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were meeting in Paris on Thursday to agree security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace accord with Russia to end the 3 1/2 war sparked by Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.

The guarantees by the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which remain under wraps but are expected to include ramped-up training for the Ukrainian army and deployment of troops by some European states, have angered Russia.

They form part of a push led by French President Emmanuel Macron to show that Europe can act independently of Washington after United States President Donald Trump upended American foreign policy after just months in office.

The summit, co-led by Macron and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, aims to firm up plans on security guarantees for Ukraine if or when there is a ceasefire and get a clearer picture of US involvement.

Russia has heaped scorn on such assurances, and President Vladimir Putin himself has said Moscow is willing to “resolve all our tasks militarily” in the absence of an agreement. He has also indicated that he does not want to see European troops in postwar Ukraine.

The coalition includes around 30 nations backing Ukraine, mainly European, but also Canada, Australia and Japan.

The US is being represented by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. The summit will be followed by phone talks with Trump and a press conference an hour later., This news data comes from:http://hbf-ep-xgln-qpmd.jyxingfa.com

‘Not up to them’

“Europe is ready, for the first time with this level of commitment and intensity,” Macron said on Wednesday as he welcomed Zelenskyy, adding that preparatory work on the guarantees was complete, and the Thursday summit would aim to endorse them “politically.”

But there appears to be no agreement on a course of action, with the nature of the guarantees sketchy and some countries, notably Germany, reluctant to commit to sending troops.

Until a ceasefire is reached, “there will certainly be no deployment of troops in Ukraine, even after that,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on television.

Germany intends to contribute to strengthening Ukraine’s air defense and equipping its ground forces, government sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Frustration has been building over what leaders say is Putin’s unwillingness to strike a deal to end the conflict.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy said “we have not yet seen any signs from Russia that they want to end the war.”

Hours before the talks were due to begin, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said Moscow would not consider the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine “in any format.”

Zelenskyy meets European leaders on Ukraine security guarantees

“It’s not for them to decide,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary-General Mark Rutte shot back on Thursday.

‘Alliance between Europe and US’

In an interview with French magazine Le Point published ahead of the summit, Zelenskyy said European security guarantees “might not be enough” to prevent Putin from starting a new war.

“We need an alliance between Europe and the United States,” he said.

The gathering takes place after Putin’s high-profile trips to China and the United States.

Speaking on Wednesday in Beijing, where he attended a massive military parade alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin hailed his forces’ progress in Ukraine, adding that Russian troops were advancing on “all fronts.”

In unprecedented scenes, Putin was pictured shaking hands and chatting with Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as they walked down a red carpet by Tiananmen Square.

Last month, Trump rolled out a red carpet for Putin in Alaska but those talks yielded no breakthrough.

Trump has indicated the US could back up any European peacekeeping plan, but would not deploy US soldiers to Ukraine.