Image Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN / Contributor / Getty 
On Thursday Ukraine’s Dictator Vladimir Zelensky met with a group of European leaders known as the Coalition of the Willing at the Elysee Palace in Paris. The group has backed Ukraine’s war effort against Russia and has generally promoted policies to expand the conflict.
France and the U.K. announced they are committed to sending military personnel to Ukraine as part of a so-called peacekeeping force, something both London and Paris were seeking to do for months. Belgium, Lithuania and Estonia have signaled a readiness to participate in deployments to Ukraine as well.
Germany, Italy, Hungary and Poland ruled out sending troops to fight in Ukraine, however many countries in attendance will contribute to other various “security guarantees.”
According to French President Emmanuel Macron, 26 member nations of the Coalition of the Willing have expressed their readiness to send troops to Ukraine.
Perhaps more alarmingly is that France and the U.K. agreed to give Ukraine long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia with, something Kiev’s Dictator has been threatening Russia with recently. Notably, long-range missile strikes nearly triggered nuclear war in November.
President Donald Trump phoned into the meeting to criticize the Europeans for hypocritically buying Russian oil. Notably, Trump seeks to end the war via diplomacy and financial policies which include tariffs, such as he levied on India recently.
“According to Bild, Trump clashed with European leaders in a ‘heated phone call’ on Thursday, accusing them of buying Russian oil. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reportedly countered that imports had been ‘massively reduced’ since the conflict escalated, while European officials stressed that only Hungary and Slovakia were still importing directly. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly went further, alleging that Europe was buying Russian oil through India,” RT said. “Bild reports that when the conversation turned to sanctions, the Europeans proposed sending representatives to Washington within 48 hours to form a joint working group. But it remains unclear whether Trump agreed, and European officials told Bild they do not expect him to follow through on sanctions despite his repeated threats.”
According to The Financial Times, the U.S. will also phase out security aid for European armies on Russia’s border to get Europe to be more responsible for its own defense.
Trump told CBS on Wednesday that he is committed to ending the Ukraine war.
“I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump said in a phone interview. “Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done.”
Ukraine’s Dictator stated that a framework for security guarantees was agreed to. It involves “concrete steps” in which leaders are assigning specific support areas such as cyber or air defense to individual nations. Zelensky also called for more investment in European defense, “European weapon production lines are not working enough,” he said.
Russian news provided a Russian prospective on Thursday’s developments:
“Without the participation of the USA, all the talk of the ‘coalition of the willing’ will remain words on paper,” said Sergey Poletaev, editor of the Vatfor project, commenting to Sputnik on European plans to deploy troops to Ukraine.Poletaev said the Trump administration’s policy is to make allies handle matters themselves, noting that “The States are not currently endorsing European proposals.” He argued that NATO has always avoided direct conflict involvement, and that European nations, unwilling to fight themselves, are trying to entice America to lead – a strategy that is failing. He concluded that without Washington’s involvement, these plans are merely talk and a one-way street, regardless of any public statements.
