Key Points and Summary – A 26-nation “coalition of the willing,” led by France, agreed this week to provide post-war security guarantees for Ukraine, including a potential international force.
The U.S. did not attend the Paris meeting but is expected to contribute, possibly by leading intelligence and drone monitoring of a demilitarized buffer zone inside Ukraine.
The plan drew a sharp warning from Vladimir Putin on Friday, who declared that any Western forces arriving before a peace deal is finalized would be considered “legitimate targets.”
This high-stakes development follows last month’s muddled diplomatic messaging from the U.S. after the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska.
Putin Makes a Big Threat in Ukraine
Shortly after the summit last month in Alaska between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump’s jack-of-all-trades foreign envoy, Steve Witkoff, said in a TV interview that Putin had agreed to allow NATO-style security guarantees in a post-war scenario.
“We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” Witkoff said in a CNN interview after the Alaska summit.
However, subsequent reporting found that Putin had possibly not agreed to anything like that, that Witkoff may have misunderstood what was discussed, and it was part of a pattern of the envoy, a friend of Trump’s with little prior experience in diplomacy, not knowing what he was doing.
There has been little diplomatic progress in the weeks since, with much discussion and argument over which countries would provide “security guarantees” in Ukraine, in the aftermath of a peace agreement. Trump has been clear that there will be no “boots on the ground” from the U.S. in Ukraine.
Who Provides Security?
This week, Reuters reported, 26 nations, led by France, met in Paris and agreed to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, which will include “an international force on land and sea and in the air.” The group dubbed itself the “coalition of the willing,” although it was not specified exactly which countries are included.
And while the U.S. did not participate in the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a call with Trump afterwards, and that “U.S. contributions to the guarantees would be finalised in the coming days.”
“The day the conflict stops, the security guarantees will be deployed,” the French president said in a press conference after the Paris meeting.
What Will the U.S. Role Look Like?
Per NBC News, the U.S. “could take the lead role in monitoring a large buffer zone inside Ukraine envisioned as a way to protect the country from Russia.”
That zone would be described as a “large demilitarized area,” inside what is now Ukraine. Under that scenario, per NBC, the U.S. “would take the lead in watching the buffer zone, using drones and satellites along with other intelligence capabilities.”
However, an agreement to do that remains several steps away.
A Warning From Putin
Meanwhile, the Russian leader is warning against the use of such Western troops before the war is over.
Per the New York Times, Putin said Friday that Western forces would be “legitimate targets” if they arrived in the area before a peace agreement is finalized.
“If some troops appear there, especially now during the fighting, we proceed from the premise that they will be legitimate targets,” Putin said, per the Moscow Times.
The Russian president added that there would be no point in Western troops coming to Ukraine following a peace agreement.
“If decisions are reached that will lead to peace, to long-term peace, then I simply don’t see the point in their presence on the territory of Ukraine. Because if deals are reached, let no one doubt that Russia will comply with them in full,” Putin said, per the Moscow Times.
Putin also said that he would like to meet with Zelenskyy, and for the meeting to take place in Moscow, although the Ukrainian side has dismissed that idea as a nonstarter.
“The Ukrainian side wants a meeting,” Putin said at the economic conference in Vladivostok, Russia, this week. We are ready… And the best place for it would be the capital of our country.”
Trump has been promoting the idea of a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, although the Ukrainian president has made clear that he does not want to hold it in Moscow.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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Swamplaw Yankee
September 6, 2025 at 11:46 pm
The PRC CCP Xi regime currently has tens of thousands of boots on the ground in Ukraine. Who knows how many PRC boots are inside the slave nations of the Federation?
The recent parade of military technology in production under the Xi regime shows that the 2 empires facing off with the PRC empire are little prepared to even deflect Xi’s Vassal, Putin. They just do not have the production capacity to create/maintain, inter alia, a missile/drone reserve.
Xi tested the grandstanding MAGA Potus Trumpkins with the recent 12 day flare off. Suddenly, the USA had expended huge percentages of this and that missile/drone inventory. This was in addition to the missile tech consumed by Israel.
If Xi instructed his “Axis of Gulag States” member to double the conflict time to 24 days and triple the attack ratio in the last 12 days, the USA would have been forced to a new military frontier: no ammo.
If Xi was clever, adroit and fiendish, he should instruct his “Axis of Gulag States” member to re-start the war with such a reserve on hand. Xi supplies the hardware, fine tunes the time versus reserve and the USA is finished. The USA loses because they refuse to put boots on the ground in Ukraine! No boots, then the USA military remains ignorant.
Soon, the USA will be unable to more than a token helper to Israel. As the Yankee military hardware becomes more expensive, much less needed, even less used, the Xi regime will be tackling Ukraine at the Genocide line, teaching Ukraine top secret strategy only perceived at the line of Genocide. Ukraine will allocate its limited resources for manufacture as needed and Zi’s intelligence will monitor every little tweak, response, etc.
At this time, NATO must be downgraded! Why is that? Those with less than a 3% tax takeout have what military purpose in mind? The top brass wants to meet quarterly, chat and have wonderful free food? They want to attack their own civilians with tanks for internet speech crimes? Is every NATO state now a France with no freelance journalism legally allowed? Just send the few dollars direct to Ukraine, who has a real army.
Every NATO nation demands in 2025 that it hides it’s boots far, far away from the dancing line of Genocide death. What will their next war be like? As Xi’s regime sports the number one tested military, only Ukrainians will be able to be “capable” first responders, on the same military level.
The reality of new NATO hardware seems to wallow 24-48 months away. Only Zi and Zelensky seems to have a industrial base that can produce new technology in weeks.
The second rate USA seems only motivated to betray Ukraine a second time. In 2014 POTUS Obama betrayed the WEST with his unilateral greenlighting of the loss to NATO of the Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/Azov Sea jurisdiction zone to the prime vile cold war enemy of the WEST: tsarling Putin.
In 2025 MAGA POTUS Trumpkins has self-abdicated himself from any WEST leadership role and compulsively want to outplay Obama in the Benedict Arnold slime role. Can Trump betray the WEST even more than Obama with his traitorous incessant demands to give Ukraine’s ancient soil to the commies, soil that is not his to legally give?
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