European countries are working with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on proposed "security guarantees" to protect any future peace deal, measures that Donald Trump has suggested he will support after the historic White House meeting earlier this week.
There is a "wide spectrum" of what this could mean in practice, said the BBC, and a "big question mark" remains over what guarantees Russia will be willing to accept.
The "inherent contradiction" of any security guarantees is that they must be "robust enough" to deter Russia from a future attack, but "not so robust" that Russia refuses to accept them and "threatens to target Western assets" in Ukraine, said the BBC. "Nobody wants to start World War Three."
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Trump has ruled out Nato membership for Ukraine and US boots on the ground, but Europe still hopes that Washington will agree to provide logistics and intelligence, and a backstop of military air support if Russia were to renege on any peace deal.
Even for Europe, "I don't think boots on the ground is a credible answer", military analyst Sean Bell told Sky News. Policing the 600-mile border would require 100,000 soldiers at a time and a force of 300,000 to allow for training and rotations. The entire UK army would only make up 10% of that, with France likely to be able to contribute a further 10%.
It's unclear what Putin and Trump agreed at the Alaska summit but the White House claimed Russia had accepted "Nato-style protection" for Ukraine. US special envoy Steve Witkoff described the security guarantees that Putin had accepted as "Article 5-like", referring to Nato's mutual defence clause.
Keir Starmer said the coalition of the willing is "preparing for the deployment of a reassurance force" in the event of "hostilities ending". In practice, that is likely to involve "protecting Ukraine from the skies and sea" and helping to train and replenish its depleted armed forces – or an agreement "with only the threat of military involvement once any deal is breached", said The Times.
What next?
The question remains: how would the coalition respond if its forces were attacked or Russia re-invaded?
"A formal pledge to fight Russia would amount to Article 5 by other means", while a "vague mandate" might "tempt Russia to test European resolve", said The Economist. France's President Emmanuel Macron said the ultimate guarantee would be the strengthening of Ukraine's own – currently much beleaguered – armed forces and thus Russia should not be allowed to impose limits on the size or capability of those forces in a peace deal.
But Kyiv and Moscow's positions remain far apart on territory, said The Economist, and the "Trumpian vision of a peace deal" relies on Russia agreeing to security guarantees for Ukraine, "a state it denies exists".
