French President Emmanuel Macron, along with 26 other Western allies, committed on Thursday, September 4 to deploying troops by “land, sea or air” to Ukraine the day after a ceasefire agreement with Russia is reached.
This commitment provides long-anticipated reassurance to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described the move as the first “concrete step” in a long time.
Russian officials have expressed dismay over this posture, with Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharaova “categorically rejecting” any scenario involving the “appearance of NATO military contingents” in Ukraine, a stance which has remained unchanged throughout the course of the three-year war.
The leaders’ next step will be taking this proposal to the White House in another bid to gain the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump; Macron said he had “no doubt” of America’s willingness to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine.
During Macron’s meeting last month with Trump in Washington D.C., the American president was quick to stress that Europe would be the first line of defense in ensuring Ukraine’s security, saying they would “take a lot of the burden,” but that the U.S. would remain “involved.”
President Trump didn’t immediately shut down the idea of sending U.S. troops into Ukraine to keep the peace, raising questions about a potential future with a heightened American role in security guarantees- a conversation which has historically wrinkled the eyebrows of the incumbent U.S. administration.
In addition to security guarantees, the discussions to come with the American president will likely involve ramping up sanctions.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb suggested the U.S. and the EU should coordinate more closely to curtail Russia’s oil and gas revenues, saying this would help “halt Russia’s war machine by economic means.”
While this development was perceived as a sizable step forward by Zelenskyy and his allies, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte issued a warning, saying that Russia and China are ramping up their defense capabilities for “long term confrontation.”
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin.
Image Credit: Narendra Modi via X.
Putin and Modi walked into the meeting holding hands and exchanged friendly pleasantries with Jinping, marking the most recent display of a world order and security umbrella tilting East.
At the summit, the Russian President spent his airtime accusing NATO of destabilising the region and rejecting the claim that his country started the war in Ukraine. Putin said that until Ukraine agrees to a deal, Moscow is prepared to “resolve all our tasks militarily.”
Despite the East’s latest show of strength, the diplomatic calculus of the Coalition of the Willing’s commitments may endure.
On Wednesday, President Trump told CBS News that he remains committed to reaching a deal: “I think we’re going to get it all straightened out.”
Featured image credit:
Image: ‘Coalition of the willing’ meeting in Paris on September 4, 2025.
Source: Jorge Liboreiro/X
