Countries that support Kyiv met in Paris Tuesday in a bid to move towards a settlement of the war in Ukraine, which will enter its fifth year next month.
The summit of the “coalition of the willing” brings together 35 countries and aims to display the “convergence” between Washington, the Europeans and Kiev on the “operational modalities” of security guarantees for Ukraine, the Élysée Palace said Monday.
Twenty-seven heads of state or government, mainly Europeans, including President Nicusor Dan, arrived in the capital for the meeting. US emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, will also be present in the first US physical participation at a summit of the coalition launched last spring by France and the United Kingdom.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are also expected.
The leaders aim to agree in particular on their common vision on the “modalities of a future truce” between Ukraine and Russia, on their response in the event of a violation, as well as on the principle of “deploying a multinational force” to “give assurances to Ukraine” in the framework of a possible political agreement, the French presidency said. These decisions were still in the process of being “finalized” on Monday.
The heads of state and government would only reveal “what military secrecy allows to be said,” an adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron has warned. In other words, we should not expect to know the strength of this multinational force or the contributions of the countries willing to participate in it.
“Our ambition is to announce tomorrow the completion of the convergence works,” the councilor explained. “We can confidently say that the Europeans in the Coalition of Will and the Americans know how to provide security guarantees to Ukraine once a truce is reached and peace negotiations begin,” he added.
PREPARATORY MEETINGS
To prepare for Tuesday’s meeting in Paris, security advisers from 15 countries, including France, Germany and Canada, as well as representatives of the EU and NATO, met in Kyiv on Saturday. Steve Witkoff participated remotely in discussions dedicated to the details of the latest version of the cessation of hostilities plan presented by the United States and negotiated with Ukraine. Another preparatory meeting, of the Chiefs of Staff, took place on Monday.
This series of talks aims to “make an additional contribution to the (Ukrainian) defense and accelerate the end of the war,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday evening.
“Ukraine will be prepared for the two possible paths: diplomacy, which we are seeking, or the continuation of an active defense if the pressure exerted by our partners on Russia proves insufficient,” Zelenskyy said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, has asserted in recent weeks that Moscow will achieve its objectives in Ukraine, either through negotiations or by force. But the Kremlin said it would “harden” its position in the negotiations, after accusing Ukraine of trying to attack one of Putin’s residences, which Kyiv denies and is generally considered not to be true.
Donald Trump, who initially said he was shocked by the alleged attack, now says he “does not believe” that this attack took place.
Russia released a video showing the debris of a drone, a map with the trajectory of the aircraft and the testimony of a man presented as an inhabitant of a village located near the residence.
KYIV CLINIC HIT BY RUSSIAN ATTACK
On the ground, Russian forces continued their advance on Monday, claiming the capture of the town of Grabovské in the Sumy region of neortheastern Ukraine, where Putin ordered his troops to conquer a “buffer zone” on the border.
In 2025, the Russian army recorded the strongest advance on the front since the first year – 2022 – of the invasion of Ukraine, conquering more than 5,600 km2 of Ukrainian territory, according to an analysis made by AFP based on data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which collaborates with the Critical Threats Project (CTP), two American think tanks specializing in the study of conflicts.
On the eve of the meeting of Ukraine’s allies intended to continue diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, a clinic in Kyiv was hit on Monday by Russian attacks that caused the death of two people. Anti-aircraft alerts sounded during the night throughout Ukraine, targeted by 165 drones, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who signaled new power outages.
