Macron and Starmer Lead as Paris Summit Redraws Ukraine Strategy

Europe Will Take Control—No Matter How the Talks End

At a high-stakes summit in Paris today, European leaders gathered to reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine’s defense amid growing Ukrainian momentum on the battlefield and wavering U.S. support.

Hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, the meeting drew heads of state and defense officials from over 20 European nations, with a central focus on accelerating weapons deliveries, expanding training missions, and coordinating security guarantees. In a significant shift, Macron confirmed the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine—a bold signal of Europe’s growing willingness to step into the security vacuum left by U.S. paralysis.

Macron, aware that the summit’s outcomes could provoke the Trump camp, placed a direct call to Donald Trump ahead of the meeting—preempting media coverage and cutting off the former president’s usual strategy of weaponizing headlines.

In one of the summit’s most consequential announcements, Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared their countries would jointly lead a “reassurance force” to deter future Russian aggression inside Ukraine. Crucially, the initiative is not contingent on unanimous EU support—a deliberate break from Europe’s traditional consensus-driven approach to security.

“We do not need unanimity to achieve it,” Macron said. A British-French military delegation will now advise Kyiv on long-term defense planning, marking a bold new phase of European leadership in the war.