Following Tuesday’s news of a U.S.-Ukrainian agreement on a ceasefire framework, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he and other European leaders believe security guarantees for Ukraine “should not be separate from NATO and its capabilities.” At a meeting with his European colleagues, Macron urged military leaders from roughly 30 countries to begin developing a “plan to define reliable security guarantees” for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement with Russia.
Amid “accelerated peace negotiations,” Macron stressed the need to “move from concept to plan” to establish reliable security guarantees for a lasting and durable peace in Ukraine.
Despite the diplomatic progress between Washington and Kyiv and Europe’s talk of deploying a peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine as a security guarantee, Moscow has expressed no interest in a temporary ceasefire and outright rejected the idea of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine. “The presence of troops, of armed forces from the same NATO countries, but under a different flag — whether the EU flag or national flags — does not change anything in this regard. It is, of course, unacceptable to us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in mid-February.