UK And France Convene Defense Ministers’ Meeting to Discuss Ukraine

The UK, France, and the other European countries involved in the ‘coalition of the willing’ are still hoping for security guarantees from the United States

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, (L), French President Emmanuel Macron, (R), and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (C) speak during a meeting at the Elysee Palace, in Paris on March 27, 2025. Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP

Defense ministers from around 30 countries are meeting at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the possible deployment of troops in Ukraine to police a future peace agreement with Russia.

The meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” comes after senior British and French military officers, including the chief of the UK defence staff, Adm. Sir Tony Radakin, visited Kyiv last week.

The United States—which is seeking to broker a cease-fire and a permanent peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine—will not be represented at Thursday’s meeting.

British Defence Secretary John Healey and French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu are hosting the meeting.

The British Ministry of Defence issued a statement in advance of the meeting, noting that Healey would say, “We cannot jeopardize the peace by forgetting about the war, so we must put even more pressure on Putin and step up our support for Ukraine, both in today’s fight and the push for peace.”

“Our commitment is to put Ukraine in the strongest position to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and deter future Russian aggression,” the statement said.

The UK, France, and the other European countries involved in the “coalition of the willing” are still hoping for security guarantees from the United States in the event of a peacekeeping operation in Ukraine, something President Donald Trump has been unwilling to provide.

Trump has been discussing a deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in which the United States would share in the profits of Ukraine’s mining of rare minerals.

He has said that the deal, and the presence of U.S. mining companies in Ukraine, would deter Russia.

“We will be on the land, and that way, there is going to be automatic security because nobody is going to be messing around with our people,” Trump said on Feb. 26.

However, Zelenskyy has been hesitant to finalize an agreement for his country’s resources without firm U.S. security guarantees.

Last month, Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed security guarantees to achieve a “real, fair peace” and to bring the war with Russia to an end.

Zelenskyy said the lack of security guarantees for Ukraine enabled Russia to occupy Crimea and wage war in the Donbas region 11 years ago, and later facilitated Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

On March 20, Trump said the mineral deal would be signed “very shortly.”

During the election campaign last year, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine, but his efforts have been stymied.

Negotiations between the United States and Russia on March 24 struggled to lay the groundwork for a limited, 30-day cease-fire that would temporarily halt some of the fighting.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have balked at the other’s terms for such a deal, and have thus far failed to agree with the United States on which types of targets should be included or excluded from a limited cease-fire.

An initial deal, which both Ukraine and Russia agreed to, on March 18, sought to halt attacks on civilian energy infrastructure for 30 days.

That deal was almost immediately violated, with officials in each country accusing the other of breaching the truce by sabotaging an oil facility in a part of Russia occupied by Ukrainian troops.

But several European countries, led by the UK and France, continue to work on the shape of a force—possibly up to 30,000 strong—that would be sent to Ukraine to keep the peace, or deter aggression from either side.

‘Credible Security Assurances’

The British Ministry of Defence statement said: “The prime minister [Keir Starmer] and defence secretary have both been clear that a lasting peace in Ukraine will require credible security assurances to deter Russian aggression.”

“The UK has been stepping up to lead international support to keep Ukraine in the fight now and put them in the strongest possible position to secure peace.”

Representatives from around 50 nations are set to gather at NATO’s headquarters to drum up military support for Ukraine on Friday.

That meeting will be co-chaired by Healey and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not expected to take part.

Image taken from a Ukrainian drone of an incident in which Russian troops allegedly killed surrendering Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Piatykhatky in Ukraine on March 13, 2025. Ukraine military/European defense officials via AP

The meetings in Brussels come as Ukraine accused Russia of executing four Ukrainian prisoners of war—soldiers who had just surrendered—in an incident on March 13.

Ukraine has produced drone footage that it claimed showed soldiers with Russian uniform markings shooting Ukrainians outside a wrecked house in the village of Piatykhatky, near Zaporizhzhia in the south of the country.

Yurii Bielousov, head of the war crimes department for Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said: “Whatever a peace agreement would be, Ukraine is not ready to forgive everything which happened in our territory. In which form there will be accountability, that we don’t know at the moment.”

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia treated surrendering Ukrainian troops in accordance with international law, and said of killing prisoners of war, “This is not a policy of the Russian side.”

Peskov also repeated claims that Ukraine had faked atrocities allegedly committed by Russian troops in Bucha, near Kyiv, in the first months of the war in 2022.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.