Ukrainian president says initiative to establish group of countries willing to provide military support to Kyiv to be considered at Thursday's meeting
The "coalition of the willing," an initiative to establish a group of countries willing to provide military support to Kyiv, currently appears "theoretical," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.
"Today, we face another initiative; the leaders of this initiative in Europe are France and Britain. This is a coalition of the willing. For now, it appears somewhat theoretical," he said at a news conference in Paris following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
"On September 4, we will have a meeting of the 'coalition of the willing,' the result of which—I don't know which specific day it will be, but it will definitely happen—will be security guarantees for Ukraine. I believe we will develop very important guarantees," he said.
A meeting of representatives from the coalition countries is slated to take place in Paris on Thursday. European leaders and Zelenskyy are also expected to hold a phone call with US President Donald Trump following the meeting.
On Aug. 30, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the actions of the "coalition of the willing" are aimed at undermining the emerging progress on a Ukrainian settlement following Russian-American contacts.
Following the meeting with Macron, Zelenskyy also thanked him and his nation on Telegram.
"France stands with Ukraine, and we are grateful to the entire French people and personally to President Macron for such strong support of our country and for France's leadership in many initiatives and coalitions," he said.
According to Zelenskyy, he coordinated positions with Macron ahead of the "coalition of willing" leaders' meeting and discussed preparatory work on security guarantees.
"I believe our work will bring strong security guarantees for Ukraine. We are all working on this," he said.
Another topic on the agenda was defense support for Ukraine—meeting current needs, strengthening sanctions against Russia, and the possibility of using frozen Russian assets, he said.
"Special attention was given to our path toward the European Union. We appreciate France's support on this issue," he said.
