Macron says 26 countries are committing troops to Ukraine

Donald Trump has criticized European purchases of Russian oil.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that 26 countries in the Coalition of the Willing have pledged to deploy troops in Ukraine or to "be present on land, at sea, or in the air" to provide security guarantees to Kiev.

In a press conference following a meeting of this group of 35 Ukrainian allies in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Macron insisted that this reassurance force does not intend to engage in any war with Russia, but rather "to guarantee peace and send a very clear signal."

The objective of these forces, which would not be on the front lines, is to "prevent any further major aggression" and involve these 26 countries "in the lasting security of Ukraine."

Without going into details, Macron noted that the members of the Coalition of the Willing have confirmed "what they were willing to do, each in their own role, complementing each other."

"Now, we will continue this work. In the coming days, we will finalize it with the United States to obtain details on the support they provide, from monitoring to the ceasefire and all these security lines. And then, we will have to formalize political texts, that is, prepare a lasting peace agreement and, undoubtedly, a multilateral agreement or a series of bilateral support agreements," said the French president.

He also noted that the commitments reached in Paris "go far beyond" the solidarity and support agreements signed with Ukraine to date.

"The advantage of what we're doing here is that it goes much further. It's a military plan that details the contributions we're willing to make to the Ukrainian army and our reinsurance forces. This is already an operational formalization. Now we're going to work on the legal and political formalization that will be coordinated with a lasting peace treaty," he emphasized.

Meanwhile , US President Donald Trump has criticized European countries for continuing to buy oil from Russia.

"It's true that Trump has complained about two European countries that continue to buy Russian oil," Macron said, adding that the US president's warning is "a good thing" because the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia have invoked their closeness to the current US administration to defend their decision not to seek alternatives to Russian crude.

Macron also stated that "the US-European alignment will be effective in putting an end to these practices."