LAST UPDATE | 24 Feb

FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL Macron has supported Donald Trump’s outreach to Russia over Ukraine but called on the United States to back any European troop deployment as a form of security guarantee.

“We want a quick deal but not a fragile one,” Macron said at a joint news conference at the White House.

Macron said there was “a big change” for the war in that there was a new US administration.

“There is good reason for President Trump to re-engage with President Putin,” Macron said.

But Macron said he shared Europe’s own experience in negotiating after an earlier conflict in Ukraine a decade ago.

“In 2014, our predecessors negotiated peace with President Putin, but because of the lack of guarantees and especially security guarantees President Putin violated this peace,” Macron said.

“So this is why being strong and having deterrence capacities is the only way to be sure it will be respected,” he said.

US troops

Macron, who has mulled sending French troops to Ukraine to preserve any peace, said it was critical for the United States to offer support.

“A lot of my European colleagues are ready to be engaged, but we do need this American backup, because this is part of the credibility of the security guarantees,” he said.

Trump and Biden both ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine, and Trump has pressed for Kyiv to sign a deal to hand over mineral wealth to the United States.

Macron said: “I think we should never say I will never send boots on the ground, because you give a blank check to violate any type of commitment.”

Trump: War could end within weeks

Earlier, Trump said the Ukraine war could end “within weeks” as he met with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House to discuss the conflict.

During the meeting, Macron told Trump that Europe is ready to “step up” defense spending but said he hoped for “strong” US involvement in securing any peace settlement in Ukraine.

Macron sought to persuade him to stick by Kyiv, insisting that Ukraine “must be involved” in talks after Trump opened direct talks with Moscow over the war.

Trump said Russia was ready to accept European troops deployed in Ukraine as guarantors of a deal to end fighting, and said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could visit the White House as early as “this week or next.”

After his meeting with Macron today, Trump issued a statement in which he said he and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are discussing “major” economic deals as part of the talks.

Russia has been under crushing international sanctions spearheaded by former president Joe Biden’s administration in response to its military onslaught against Ukraine.

The punitive measures would have to end – a major victory for Putin – for the potential US-Russian “transactions” touted by Trump to go ahead.

Blame game

Meanwhile, members of the United Nations today backed a resolution supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the face of staunch opposition from Washington, which pushed its own language that declined to blame Russia for the war or mention Kyiv’s borders.

A European-backed text marking the conflict’s third anniversary won 93 votes for and 18 votes against, with 65 abstentions.

Washington sided with Moscow, as well as Russian allies Belarus, North Korea and Sudan, to vote against.

The text – which won far less support compared to previous resolution on the war – strongly criticises Russia, and emphasises Ukraine’s territorial integrity and inviolability of its borders.

Washington drafted a rival resolution amid an intensifying feud between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russian ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia had called the US text “a step in the right direction” amid a sudden thaw between Russia and the US under Trump.

But France put forward amendments to the US text telling the General Assembly that Paris, along with European countries and Britain, would “not be able to support in its current form.”

The countries, all backers of Ukraine, pushed to reword the US text to say that the “full-scale invasion of Ukraine” has been undertaken by Russia.

 © AFP 2025

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