Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer shake hands after signing a declaration on deploying troops to Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks, at the Élysée Palace in Paris, France, 6 January 2026. Photo: EPA / Ludovic Marin
Ukraine’s Western allies signed a joint declaration on Tuesday committing them to providing “robust security guarantees” to Kyiv once an eventual ceasefire with Russia is agreed, with the UK and France also pledging to deploy troops to Ukraine to deter any future Russian attacks on the country.
Signed by the leaders of 26 nations from the so-called Coalition of the Willing after a summit in Paris, the declaration enshrines the group’s commitment to ensuring a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine” through five key security guarantees.
The declaration foresees the establishment of a US-led mechanism to monitor any ceasefire; long-term support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who are to “remain the first line of defence and deterrence” against Russian aggression; the formation of a multinational peacekeeping force “to support the rebuilding of Ukraine’s armed forces and support deterrence”; “binding commitments” to support Ukraine in the event of a future Russian attack; and continued “mutually beneficial defence cooperation” with Kyiv.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who hosted the summit, said the coalition’s guarantees were “key to ensuring that a peace agreement can never amount to a Ukrainian surrender, and that a peace agreement can never result in a new threat to Ukraine”.
The UK and France also went “even further”, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, by signing an agreement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on establishing “military hubs” across Ukraine after a ceasefire to support Kyiv’s forces.
The agreement “paves the way for the legal framework under which British, French and partner forces could operate on Ukrainian soil, securing Ukraine’s skies and seas and regenerating Ukraine’s armed forces for the future”, Starmer added.
Vladimir Putin has previously warned that any Western force deployed in Ukraine would be a “legitimate target” for the Russian military.
Though US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner did attend Tuesday’s summit, the US did not sign the joint declaration, though Witkoff insisted that US President Donald Trump “strongly” stood behind the security protocols and that Washington would “be there for Ukraine”, POLITICO reported.
Doubts remain over the level of Washington’s involvement in the West’s security guarantees to Kyiv, however, as a US commitment to “support the [peacekeeping] force if it is attacked” was removed from an earlier draft of the declaration, POLITICO added.
Zelensky said the Coalition of the Willing’s pledge to provide security guarantees represented “serious” and “very specific” substance and, after a separate meeting with Witkoff and Kushner later on Tuesday, thanked Washington for its “readiness to provide a backstop in all areas: security guarantees, monitoring of the ceasefire, and reconstruction”.
