France and Britain have proposed a one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine that would cover air, sea and energy infrastructure attacks but not include ground fighting, as U.S. President Donald Trump again expressed his displeasure with Ukraine’s leader on Monday.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump posted an Associated Press story headlined “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says end of war with Russia is ‘very, very far away.'”
“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote, questioning the Ukrainian president’s commitment to any ceasefire.
With respect to a temporary pause, French President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister made their comments amid a flurry of European diplomacy designed to shore up Western support for Ukraine following an acrimonious meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump — along with U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance — in the Oval Office on Friday.
“Such a truce on air, sea and energy infrastructure would allow us to determine whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith when he commits to a truce. And that’s when real peace negotiations could start,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday.
Hosting a meeting of world leaders in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for a coalition of willing nations to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia. Starmer said Europe must do the heavy lifting but would need U.S. support.
Under the proposal, European ground troops would only be deployed to Ukraine in a second phase, Macron said in an interview published in Le Figaro late on Sunday.
“There will be no European troops on Ukrainian soil in the coming weeks,” Le Figaro quoted Macron as saying as he flew to London for a meeting of European leaders, convened by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to advance efforts at drawing up a Ukraine peace plan.
“The question is how we use this time to try to obtain a truce, with negotiations that will take several weeks and then, once peace is signed, a [troop] deployment,” Macron said.
Mixed signals from U.K.
The French president did not elaborate on how air, sea and energy infrastructure could be monitored.
“In my eyes, that can only be possible with NATO, or at least NATO command and then Patriot systems, long-range missiles and aviation, which Ukraine does not have,” said a European diplomat. “And you have to negotiate with Russia so that it doesn’t carry out the massive attacks.”
With fears of a widening Ukraine-U.S. rift after Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskky’s hostile treatment at the White House, Ukrainians are increasingly pinning their hopes on Europe to help them end the war with Russia and secure a livable peace.
When asked if he was aware of the plan mentioned by Macron, Zelenskyy told reporters in London: “I’m aware of everything.”
“There are clearly a number of options on the table,” Starmer’s spokesperson said on Monday when asked about the proposal. “I’m just not getting into a running commentary on the options.”
When U.K. armed forces minister Luke Pollard commented earlier, he declined to confirm the ideas aired by Macron and Barrot.
“That’s not a plan that we currently recognize,” Pollard told the BBC.
“Certainly there are a number of different options being discussed privately between the U.K., France and our allies at the moment. It’s probably not right for me at the moment to comment on each individual option as they occur,” he said.
Starmer said Monday that a prospective minerals deal between the United States and Ukraine is not enough on its own to act as a security guarantee that would ensure Russia sticks to the terms of any peace deal in the Ukraine war.
“The mineral deal is not enough on its own,” Starmer told the British Parliament.
Zelenskyy had travelled to Washington to sign the framework for such a deal before the Friday session blew up, with U.S. officials ushering the Ukraine delegation out before anything was signed.
‘Manufactured escalation’: Merz on Oval Office spat
Friday’s heated White House exchange between Zelenskyy and Trump has increased a sense of urgency in Europe to act on Ukraine.
For example, the parties in talks to form Germany’s new government after last week’s election are considering quickly setting up two special funds potentially worth hundreds of billions of euros — one for defence and a second for infrastructure — three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with Ukraine’s former Minister of Economic Development, Tymofiy Mylovanov, about the Trump-Zelenskyy clash in the Oval Office and what it means for the relationship between the two countries moving forward.
Friedrich Merz, who is likely Germany’s next chancellor, told a news conference in Hamburg on Monday that he believed the response from Trump and Vance was “not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelenskyy, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office.”
“We must now show that we are in a position to act independently in Europe,” said Merz.
European Union leaders will meet for a summit on March 6 to discuss additional support for Ukraine, European security guarantees and how to pay for European defence needs.
Kremlin singles out Zelenskyy
The Russian government, which has rejected the idea of Western troops being deployed to Ukraine, said on Monday the Oval Office clash showed how difficult it would be to reach a settlement, blaming Ukraine.
“The Kyiv regime and Zelenskyy do not want peace. They want the war to continue,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
“Someone has to make Zelenskyy want peace,” added Peskov. “If the Europeans can do it, they should be honoured and praised.”
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West in decades.
Russia had earlier seized Crimea in 2014 after a pro-Moscow president was ousted amid mass street protests in Kyiv. Russian-backed separatists then began fighting Ukraine’s armed forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region.
Putin casts the conflict as part of an existential battle with a declining and decadent West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence, including Ukraine.
All told, Russia currently controls just under one-fifth of Ukraine — or about 113,000 square kilometres — while Ukraine has seized about 450 square km of Russia in an incursion into neighbouring Kursk province, according to open source maps of the war and Russian estimates.
