Emmanuel Macron has said France, the UK, and other nations providing security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire would not be aiming to deploy a “mass” of soldiers, but instead could send contingents of several thousand troops to key locations in Ukraine without needing Russia’s permission.
The French president told regional French newspapers, including Le Parisien and La Dépêche de Midi, that “several European countries, and indeed non-European ones” had “expressed their willingness” to join a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia.
He said this could involve “a few thousand troops” from each state, deployed at “key points” in Ukraine, to conduct training programmes and “show our long-term support”.
Macron added in the interview on Saturday that the proposed contingents from countries that were members of the Nato alliance would serve as “a guarantee of security” for Ukraine and that “several European nations, and also non-European, have expressed their willingness to join such an effort when it is confirmed”.
He added: “Under no circumstances can the Ukrainians make territorial concessions without having any security guarantees.”
Moscow has firmly opposed such a deployment, but Macron said Russia’s permission was not needed. He said Ukraine was sovereign. “If Ukraine requests allied forces to be on its territory, it is not up to Russia to accept or reject them.”
Macron will meet the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, on Monday and then travel to Berlin on Tuesday to meet the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for talks on Ukraine before an EU summit.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, led a virtual meeting of 30 international leaders on Saturday including Macron and Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as well as leaders from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Afterwards, Starmer challenged the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to sign up to a ceasefire if he was serious about peace. He said allies would keep increasing the pressure on the Kremlin, including by moving planning for a peacekeeping force to an “operational phase”.
Macron said after the meeting on Saturday that Europe and the US had to put pressure on Russia to accept a proposed ceasefire. Russia “does not give the impression it sincerely wants peace”, Macron said in a statement to Agence France-Presse. On the contrary, the Russian president was “escalating the fighting” and “wants to get everything, then negotiate”, he said.
“Russia must respond clearly and the pressure must be clear, in conjunction with the US, to obtain this ceasefire,” Macron said.
