European leaders press Trump over peacekeeper plan for Ukraine | Europe

European leaders have made new efforts to pin Donald Trump in terms of support he is ready to give to Ukraine to postpone a Russian advance, and asked him to detail the security guarantees which he would provide for any European force for peacekeeping in Ukraine in the event of a lasting ceasefire.

European leaders spoke with Trump by video on Thursday after organizing a first meeting of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” in Paris, co-sponsored by Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer.

The precise commitments made by European states to the volunteer coalition is widely completed but partly depend on the extent to which the United States will specify the aid it is willing to provide in terms of intelligence, air support and financing.

Many European countries, including Germany, Spain and Italy, have so far refused to provide troop commitments. A German spokesperson said: “The emphasis should be placed on the financing, armaments and training of the Ukrainian armed forces”, a formula which is not very different from what Europe currently provides.

After the meeting, alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the French president told journalists: “We have today 26 countries that have officially committed – others have not yet taken up position – to deploy troops of” strength “in Ukraine, or be present on the field, in the sea or in the air.”

The Ukrainian president welcomed this decision. “I think that today, for the first time for a long time, this is the first concrete step as serious,” he said.

The troops would not be deployed “on the front line” but aim to “warn any new major attack,” said Macron.

Alarmed European leaders went to the White House following the August Alaska summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin fearing that the American president will be about to force Volodymyr Zelenskyy to humiliating surrender, including the loss of territory.

Trump responded to European lobbying by saying that he had won the Russian leader’s agreement to organize direct talks with the Ukrainian president, but Russia has rejected such a commitment and largely maintained his request for the surrender of the Ukrainian territory and a commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO.

Trump had set a deadline of September 1 for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, but Trump is known to set deadlines that he then ignores.

“We had an excellent relationship,” said Trump about Putin in an interview with the Rightwing News the Daily Caller website. He said he was now very disappointed with the Russian president: “Thousands of people are dying; it is an insane war.”

Europe desperately needs to make sure that Trump does not wash his hands of war, but he could not convert Trump’s declared frustration with Putin in a plan to try to strangle the Russian economy.

Macron in Paris sought to give the impression that Europe, unlike Russia, was held in its commitments. He said: “The contributions that have been prepared, documented and confirmed at the level of defense ministers under the strictest secret allow us to say: this work is complete and will now be politically approved.”

Europe has hoped for months that Trump would activate provisional long -standing economic sanctions on countries that matter to Russian oil. The 50% prices that the United States has imposed on India, partly for the importation of Russian oil, seem to have pushed the Narendra Moda traditionally unlined, the Indian Prime Minister, closer to the arms of China and Russia.

Porcered by his diplomatic failure so far, Trump has given the impression of wanting to focus on domestic policy, including crime and economics.

The United States was represented during the Paris talks by Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who also met Zelenskyy separately.

After the summit, Starmer’s office said that it was necessary to “go even further to exert pressure on Putin to guarantee a cessation of hostilities”.

“The Prime Minister said Putin could not trust by continuing to delay peace talks and simultaneously carry out flagrant attacks against Ukraine,” added No.10.

Russia said it would not tolerate European troops in post-war Ukraine.

The coalition of arrangements includes around thirty nations supporting Ukraine, mainly European but also Canada, Australia and Japan. He met several times at the military and political level but did not publish any detailed action plan, reflecting internal divisions and uncertainty about the nature of the American contribution.

In a sort of breakthrough, the plan for Europeans to buy American weapons for use in Ukraine has started to bear fruit. On August 28, the US State Department announced the delivery of 3,350 ERAM long -range cruise missiles in Ukraine, worth $ 825 million (615 million pounds Sterling, 705 million euros).

Funding came from Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States, but the financial contribution of each country has not been disclosed. ERAM missiles have a range similar to that of scalp-ég-ombramande missiles, which Ukraine has shot occupied Crimea and the Russian Kursk region.

Zelenskyy said he had not seen “any sign of Russia that they wanted to end the war”.

NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said that it was not Putin to decide whether European troops would be stationed in Ukraine. He said, “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”

The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, described Putin as the most severe war criminal of our time.

Putin attended a military parade alongside Xi Jinping on Wednesday in Beijing on Wednesday and praised the progress of the Russian forces in Ukraine, saying that the troops were advancing on “all fronts”.

But there are signs that sanctions finally weigh on the Russian economy after two years of high growth fueled by defense expenses.

The head of Sberbank, German Greef, one of the most powerful bankers in Russia, warned Thursday that the economy stagnated and that the central bank breaks interest rates, the country would fall into recession.

Russia’s war economy increased by 4.1% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024, but it slowly slows the high interest rate weight to mitigate inflation.