If Ukraine decides to sign any peace deal ending its 3 1/2 year war with Russia, security guarantees will have to be included. Persuading Kyiv’s allies to offer those guarantees was one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s key objectives when he met with President Donald Trump and European leaders at the White House this week (the other one was staying on Trump’s good side).
The Europeans are backing up Zelensky on this point. With the cooperation of dozens of other countries, French President Emmanuel Macron and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer formed a so-called “coalition of the willing” designed to enforce whatever peace is agreed to between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The purpose of the project is clear: deter Putin from restarting the war at a later date.
Although Trump ruled out U.S. ground forces in Ukraine, he has insisted that the United States will help the French- and U.K.-led security initiative in some way, possibly by utilizing the U.S. Air Force to support the European ground forces deployed inside Ukraine.
That’s what we know so far. But there’s also a lot we don’t know, including how a European-led reassurance force in Ukraine would actually work, which countries would field the troops, whether this would be a sufficient deterrent for Zelensky, and whether the Russians would permit such an arrangement in the first place.
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