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The UK and its allies stand ready to support Ukraine before negotiations to end the war as well as to secure an eventual peace deal, the UK defence secretary says, BBC reports.
On the eve of a top-level meeting in Paris, John Healey told the BBC in Kyiv that Ukraine’s allies would “help make the skies safe, to make the seas safe, and to secure the land”, once a peace deal had been struck.
But moments earlier, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had conveyed a defiant message from China, vowing that his full-scale invasion could continue.
Healey suggested there was bluster in Putin’s words, insisting that Russia was under pressure. He also praised US President Donald Trump who he said had “brought Putin into talks” and “not closed off any options”, despite widespread criticism of the warm welcome Trump gave the Russian leader last month in Alaska.
On Thursday, Macron will host a meeting of that so-called Coalition of the Willing – a grouping of allies of Ukraine, committed to enforcing any peace deal.
A source at the Élysée, Macron’s office, has said the group are now ready to provide security guarantees for Ukraine, only waiting for US confirmation that it will act as the ultimate backstop.
The proposed deal includes continuing to train and supply Ukraine’s own army.
It also envisages European troops being deployed to Ukraine – in unspecified numbers – to deter any future to Russian aggression – a signal that Ukraine can count on its allies “full solidarity and… commitment”, the Élysée source said.
Such a deployment would need a ceasefire, the responsibility for which “falls to the Americans who are negotiating with the Russians”.
John Healey refused to give details, despite being pressed, “because that will only make Putin wiser.”
The German government is also playing down expectations of any big announcement at Thursday’s meeting.
For the time being, like Italy and other coalition members, Berlin has ruled out sending soldiers to Ukraine to police any future peace on the ground.
A German government spokesman told the BBC that the priority for now was getting Russia to agree to a ceasefire – which Putin has consistently rejected.
Trump pressed Putin for that during their summit in Alaska last month, then emerged to cite Putin’s argument that finding a final deal would be a better way out of the conflict.
bd-pratidin/GR