|left|upright=1.36 According to a report from
Le Monde, in late November 2024 Paris and London were discussing taking the lead in a coalition to be deployed in Ukraine, on terms not then defined. This was in light of Trump's return to the
White House and the prospect of American disengagement from Kyiv. The option of sending troops to Ukraine, the debate on which
French President Emmanuel Macron had launched at a meeting of Kyiv's allies in Paris in February 2024, was strongly opposed by some European countries, led by
Germany. This scenario had not been buried however and was revived during the visit of
British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer to France for the 11 November
Armistice Day ceremonies.
March–August 2025 Building upon these bilateral discussions aiming at creating a hard core of allies in Europe focused on Ukraine and wider European security, Starmer hosted, on 2 March 2025, the
London Summit on Ukraine with Macron,
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy and sixteen other world leaders, in order to coordinate support for Ukraine. Starmer characterised the meeting as addressing a "once-in-a-generation moment" for European security, stating that the time had come for decisive action rather than continued deliberation, and officially announced Britain and France would lead a European "coalition of the willing" to provide security guarantees to Ukraine and enable peace negotiations with Russia. The announcement came two days after a
meeting between Zelenskyy and United States President Trump with
Vice President Vance at the White House on 28 February. On 11 March 2025, the military chiefs of staff of 30 European and
Commonwealth nations, as well as Japan, met in Paris for talks on the creation of an international security force for Ukraine to maintain peace should a ceasefire come into effect. On 15 March, Starmer held a virtual meeting with leaders from European and Commonwealth nations to assemble the "coalition of the willing" to consider options for a "reassurance force" to be deployed within Ukraine to deter renewed Russian attacks against the country should a ceasefire be agreed. The meeting gathered the leaders of 26 countries, including several European countries, Ukraine, Turkey, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as representatives from the
European Commission and
NATO. On 20 March 2025, the exact shape and function of the coalition was described as still being subject to ongoing planning, but moved into an "operational phase" marked by the gathering of a meeting of military officials from 31 countries. No final decisions were announced after the meeting, but some media reported the participants had contemplated that the coalition could have two different designs depending on whether or not it should be deployed to defend a ceasefire agreement or a peace deal. Five military sub-planning groups (land, sea, air, regeneration and reconstruction) will reconvene the military officials from the 31 countries to continue discussions across three intensive planning days from 24 to 26 March at the
Northwood Headquarters in England. The coalition then met again for a third high-level summit in Paris on 27 March, with an agenda to finalise the plans on how the coalition shall be designed and deployed as a military force to ensure that a potential ceasefire will be lasting for Ukraine. The agenda of the summit included drafting and debating a peace treaty proposal written by the coalition, drafting and debating how the coalition can secure a "complete ceasefire" acceptable to Ukraine, bolster
aid to Ukraine (with each participating country expected to outline what it is prepared to do), and agreeing on a plan for providing long-term support for the
Ukrainian army. The outcome of the meeting was unanimous agreement that: • No sanctions against Russia could be lifted as part of a temporary ceasefire agreement. • A potential sanctions relief should instead be conditioned on reaching a peace deal. • Defense chiefs from Ukraine, France and UK should soon meet in Ukraine to conduct the next stage of the detailed planning for setting up a potential
reassurance force (determining the number of soldiers and type of military equipment required to be deployed after a reached peace deal, in order to deter and respond to a subsequently potential renewed Russian aggression). On 24 April 2025,
The Times reported that British officials considered deploying a ground force to defend Ukraine too risky and that the plan was likely to be abandoned, with military trainers deployed to Western Ukraine instead. On 29 April 2025, it reported that Europe "would struggle to put 25,000 troops on the ground in Ukraine". Lithuania's defense minister
Dovile Sakaliene reportedly said "Russia has 800,000 [troops]. Let me tell you this, if we can't even raise 64,000 that doesn't look weak – it
is weak." On 17 July 2025, a week after signing
Lancaster Declaration with France, the UK, as represented by defence secretary
John Healey, provided an update to the
House of Commons on the war in Ukraine revealing command structure, components, and supposed name of the coalition force – Multinational Force Ukraine. ,
prime minister of Japan, addresses the 24 October 2025 CoW summit by
VTC. Tokyo. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic friction with
Russia intensified in November 2025. On November 17, the Paris headquarters was formally inaugurated. In response, Russian President
Vladimir Putin demanded an explicit ban on Western military deployments on Ukrainian soil as a precondition for any peace agreement. Diplomatic efforts culminated in late November. Following intense US-Ukrainian talks in
Geneva on 23 November, a controversial US-drafted "28-point" peace plan — widely criticized as pro-Russian — was replaced by a revised "19-point proposal" more acceptable to Ukraine. Two days later, on November 25, coalition leaders met to formalize a dedicated working group to align European security guarantees with American diplomatic efforts, joined by US Secretary of State
Marco Rubio. The same day, Macron announced the creation of mentioned group to define the technical specifics of the military support. France and the UK subsequently inuagurated this working group to define the final contributions, mandates, and security guarantees of the MNF-U. Its mandate is to determine the specific security guarantees and national contributions for proposed MNF-U, with the participation of the United States and Turkey. In addition to summits, the coalition has convened its second ministerial (3 September, NATO HQ, Brussels) and first announced directors-level (4 November, Madrid) meetings.
December 2025 – present , the coalition focused on bridging European "
Article 5-style" security commitments and the skepticism regarding their credibility without direct US combat involvement. In a December briefing by
European Parliament Research Service, Coalition was suggested as an 'option of last resort' for financing 2026–27 Ukrainian security needs. On 8 December, following a meeting with European leaders in London (of UK, France, Germany, Ukraine; and with the leaders of Italy, Finland,
President of the European Commission and
Secretary general of NATO participating virtually in the second part of the meeting by video link), president
Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine and its European partners had prepared a revised
20-point proposal to be shared with the US, stressing that while the talks were "productive," there was still no agreement on ceding any Ukrainian territory, a compromise he stated Kyiv would never accept. The next day, news agencies specified three documents under discussion (the revised 20-point framework proposal for a peace plan, a reconstruction plan for Ukraine to be implemented after a reached ceasfire or peace, and a security guarantee agreement to be agreed between Ukraine, United States and the Coalition of the Willing), with the document about the security guarantees being requested by Ukraine and its European supporters to be 'aligned with the principles of the Coalition of the Willing'. The 11 December coalition's virtual summit official statements confirmed inviolability of borders principle and ongoing discussions regarding the detailed planning for a proposed European reassurance force as a component of the robust security guarantees being developed. Coalition, along the multinational force referred by
the New York Times as 'European forces', was mentioned in the press statement of the 15 December European summit. == High-level meetings ==